# "New Miracles of the Telephone Age"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-miracles-of-the-telephone-age/566277>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [January 3, 2011, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-miracles-of-the-telephone-age/566277 "2011-01-03T22:46:28Z")\
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**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2011, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-miracles-of-the-telephone-age/566277/1 "2011-01-03T22:46:28Z")

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I was leafing through an old _National Geographic_ yesterday – and by “old” I mean 57 years old. The thread title is also the title of an article in the magazine, circa 1954.

One of the people interviewed for the article was Dr. Harold S. Osborne\*, “Chief Engineer of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company”. While talking about the future of communications, Dr. Osborne was eerily accurate regarding the cell phone boom, except for a couple of…questionable predictions:

"…whenever a baby is born anywhere in the world, he is given a number which will be his telephone number for life. As soon as he can talk, he is given a watchlike device with 10 little buttons on one side and a screen on the other.

“Thus equipped, at any time when he wishes to talk to anyone in the world, he will pull out the device and punch on the keys the number of his friend. Then, turning the device over, he will hear the voice of his friend and see his face on the screen, in color and in three dimentions. If he does not see him and hear him, he will know that the friend is dead.”  
\*No mention as to if he viewed Spider-Man as an enemy or not.

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