You can find whole lists of bad predictions. I love the tech-related ones in which people pretend they can figure out what innovations will last. There was, for example. IBM Chairman Thomas Watson, who said in 1943, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." And Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of the Digital Equipment Corp., in 1977: "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
Now somebody has unearthed this about laptops, in The New York Times just 30 years ago:
For the most part, the portable computer is a dream machine for the few.
The limitations come from what people actually do with computers, as opposed to what the marketers expect them to do. On the whole, people don’t want to lug a computer with them to the beach or on a train to while away hours they would rather spend reading the sports or business section of the newspaper. Somehow, the microcomputer industry has assumed that everyone would love to have a keyboard grafted on as an extension of their fingers. It just is not so.
Yeah, boy, gimme the sports section. Who wants to lug around a computer to the beach?
I can't wait for this silly smartphone fad to be over so somebody can get back to working on jet packs.
(via Instapundit)
