The future is not quite what it used to be

Here are some very nice images of artists’ imaginations about the future. Since these imaginations are from around 1900, their relative future is, well, now.

So I can actually compare the artistic fancies with what the future turned out to be once it arrived. Here we go:

An image I really like, the arctic Zeppelin air train:

and today, proper airfields in the arctic (apparently, noone thought of feasible heavier than air flying machines some 120 years ago… ):

One particular quaint one, the “Luftpolizist”, your friendly neighbourhood policeman complete with wings:

 unfortunately, nothing remotely as nice has come to pass, instead we have cops in choppers:

And the final and most acurate one (judging from the style of the image I’d say it was drawn sometime around 1930), the mobile phone:

If you do not know what they turned out to be like today, where exactly do you live?

Of course, there are more images like that floating around the ætherweb, I may or might post another entry on that subject some day.