For subscribers
Why the future of technology is so hard to predict
The failure of a fridge designed by Einstein offers a clue.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
More recent predictions by futurists rely too much on extending the latest, trendiest technologies into new realms, says the writer.
PHOTO: PIXABAY
Faye Flam
Follow topic:
They don’t make technology predictions like they used to. Just look at the amazingly prescient technological wish list famed chemist Robert Boyle jotted down in a note found after his death in 1691:
“The recovery of Youth, or at least some of the Marks of it, as new Teeth, new Hair, new hair color’d as in youth.” Check.

