136 years of failed tech predictions

When people make predictions about future technologies that come true, they are seen as visionaries. When people miss terribly with their predictions, they have infographics that live forever telling of how wrong they were.

Such has been the case for many futurists over the past century and a third. It’s often easy to make a bold prediction when it is supposed to come true in the distant future, but some predictions were proven to be exceptionally wrong looking a couple of years ahead. Bill Gates, for example, said spam would be solved in 2 years. That was 2004. We’re still waiting and hoping for it to become a reality.

This graphic by our friends at SocialCast takes us through a 136-year journey that shows us some of the best examples of predictions gone wrong. It even includes a few examples of near-misses that have become close to a reality. It’s a tricky game, trying to guess about the future. What do you foresee?

Click to enlarge.