THE MARVELS OF 1950

Taranaki Daily News, 13 July 1929, Page 13

THE MARVELS OF 1950

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS. The imagination of mankind was fired when Jules Verne looked down the murky-arched vista of futurity and prophesied that men would saddle the forces of nature and drive their ships beneath the surface of the ocean and their chariots along the board Appian trails of the skies. But the fires kindled in the minds of men died away, and the cold, drab ashes of reaction, calumny and vituperation were heaped on those whose only sin was a God-given gift to read the future. For decades the chill hand of tradition shackled man’s progress.

About half a century ago the chains were unloosed. Science came into its own. Epochal inventions followed one another in rapid succession, until the course of the river of life has been completely altered. The startled astonishment of the first decades has become inatter-of-faet expectancy. Truly, the humblest working-man of this new western nation has luxuries and comforts of which the mightiest emperors of Rome never dreamed. Steam trains and boats, telephone, telegraph, cable, the harnessing of electricity to the myriad needs of humanity, automobiles, airplanes—we accept them all without a thought, as part of our routine of living.

What of the future? What is radio going to be in 1950? To find the answer to this question a newspaper man sought out General James G. Harbord, president of the Radio Corporation of America. “Can you tell what radio will be doing in 1950?” he asked. General Harbord smiled. It was a large order. “He would be a bold man or a fool who would hazard a guess regarding the future of any art or science,” he answered. “The main developments we may look for in the next two decades,” explained General Harbord, “are the fruits of intensive research and engineering development. It’s really a matter of logical progress. The experiments of to-day are reduced to the definite formulas of to-morrow. Freak performances of to-day become clearly understood and fully mastered principles of to-morrow.” “When we turn the dial on our radio in 1950,” the interviewer asked, “are we going to be able to see as well as hear the programme?” “Television must eventually come to supplement sound broadcasting,” he replied. ■ “Eventually the family circle must see as well as hear the radio entertainment. News events, sporting events, prominent speakers and other subjects will be flashed on the home television screen.”

"Will we enjoy homo talking movies as well as television?” was the next question. “Yes,” General Harbord answered. "Home' talking movies will be one of the outstanding developments of the next two decades. By home talking movies I mean perfectly synchronised pictur.es and sounds. To-day the talking picture is being developed for theatre use, on the necessarily ambitious scale in which equipment and costs are of secondary importance to the realistic results obtained.

“For tho home application, however, the questions of equipment and cost become paramount. Many intricate technical problems must be solved in providing tho simple and inexpensive outfit that can take its place alongside the broadcast receiver and the perfected phonograph. Ingenuity of a high order is already at work on the problem of home talking movies. “Photographs, drawings, fingerprints, commercial documents and other items will .be flashed across the oceans and continents as a matter of hourly routine in 1950. It is even possible that newspapers may bo flashed across the ocean and reproduced in their entirety, so that New Yorkers will read London newspapers and Londoners will read New York papers' the 'same day as a further step in cementing tho bonds between English-speaking peoples.” ’