Goofy British "future of phones" video from way back

Here's a wonderfully goofy old British phone-company video on the future of the phone and teleworking!

The perils of futurology

[#1 posted by Anonymous, May 28, 2009 10:52 PM]

Gilbert Anonymous here:

That's entertaining, but I have a 1937 issue of National Geographic which has a story on the city of Berlin, Germany. In the post offices the Germans had television telephones, along with movie theaters that had giant tv screens and a pneumatic tube system that could send mail anywhere in the city in a matter of minutes.

[#2 posted by zuzu, May 28, 2009 11:04 PM]

VidPhones (lack of) are evidence supporting that smart networks (centralization) don't work, and dumb networks (distribution) do work.

With the end-to-end principle, we got webcams in short order.
From Ma Bell and BT, all we got were empty promises.

[#3 posted by Anonymous, May 28, 2009 11:20 PM]

Say what you will about BT. They're the only telco that I know of that has set a date for when they will retire the PSTN.

[#4 posted by Jason Rizos, May 29, 2009 12:05 AM]

Bring on the Analog Revolution!

[#5 posted by Dungeonbrownies, May 29, 2009 12:59 AM]

oh god, love that lo-fi manual screenshot =D

[#6 posted by apoxia, May 29, 2009 1:27 AM]

This ad is fabulous! Reminds me of the great Flight of the Conchords telephone sketch presented as a current television ad for the telephone in New Zealand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMvtKy1zFfY

I'd like to state that a lot of what is said about NZ on Flight of the Conchords is pastiche and is not factual!

[#7 posted by Adam Weiss, May 29, 2009 1:50 AM]

wouldn't that be better? (deadpan) yes. marvelous.

f'kin kills me.

as does the closing scene and accompanying music.

[#8 posted by Anonymous, May 29, 2009 2:03 AM]

Quaint and silly? Right.

While campy, the very legitimate promise goes unfulfilled.

It's easy to blame the carriers and, while they do carry their share of responsibility, it's lazy consumers that are largely responsible. People expect such a highly-unrealistic level of reliability from utility-type services that it makes it difficult for anyone to offer truly useful innovation.

[#9 posted by Anonymous, May 29, 2009 2:20 AM]

I like the legs part ^^

[#10 posted by Mitch, May 29, 2009 6:09 AM]

Ha ha, I do video phone calls with my family and
I've faxed and emailed scans of documents. I work
from home, too. The hardware is just a bit different.

I wonder if the people of the past who imagined the
future ever envisioned web cam enhanced phone sex.

[#11 posted by SomeGuy, May 29, 2009 6:31 AM]

MITCH @8

"I wonder if the people of the past who imagined the
future ever envisioned web cam enhanced phone sex."

I'm sure some did but they were too polite to talk about it.

[#12 posted by Anonymous, May 29, 2009 6:43 AM]

London was swinging.. but not here, with the Hoi polloi and their cockerkneeeee accents and as usual a posho man in charge.
"How's Betty" indeed.

[#13 posted by Anonymous, May 29, 2009 6:45 AM]

From the page: "Of course, as it criticises YouTube as well as the studio, I have put it on YouTube. But somehow I don’t think they would be willing to try a takedown — not on so obvious a fair use as this one, not on the chairman of the most noted legal foundation in the field. But it’s fun to dare them."

Well, Youtube has not removed it - it just doesn't load anymore after 0:52

[#14 posted by Anonymous, May 29, 2009 10:35 AM]

Well, in any case, they totally nailed what telecommuting is like for those of us with kids.

[#15 posted by AlmostReadytoFly, May 29, 2009 1:38 PM]

I wish the sound and picture were that good on Skype!

[#16 posted by Avram / Moderator, May 29, 2009 1:57 PM]

For a moment I thought they were gonna go into "Yakkity Sax" at the end, for the scene with the kids.

[#17 posted by Xenu, May 29, 2009 7:26 PM]

I love how the telecommuter dressed up for work.

[#18 posted by Big Ed Dunkel, May 30, 2009 7:55 AM]

Funny, that's always the future that I want to visit.