Where others saw a gimmicky device, I saw the promise, I guess – the promise of communicating with the world. This led to my later involvement in bulletin boards, distant delivery of education and the Internet. And the cyberspace as we know it today in the form of the Internet will be unrecognizable when compared to the future convergence of telephone, cable, computer and broadcast industries. And it’s happening as we speak!
Predictor: Boucher, H.A. "Red"
Prediction, in context:In a June 1995 article in the Anchorage Daily News, Jay Blucher interviews 74-year-old telecommunications consultant H.A. “Red” Boucher about lifelong learning. Blucher writes: ”It was 1981. H.A. ‘Red’ Boucher was 60 years old and flying aboard Alaska Airlines with a Texas Instruments TI 765 computer with acoustic couplers, bubble memory and 300-baud modem in his lap. As the flight attendant pushed the drink cart up the aisle, she peered at Boucher furiously typing on his keyboard and asked, ‘Whatcha got there?’ He looked up, smiled and told her, ‘The world, darlin’ – the world.’ Long before the dawn of laptop computers, Boucher was already comfortable traveling everywhere with his device. From its earliest incarnations, he saw this tool’s promise to, as he calls it, ‘computer-cate.’ Today, at 74, this former lieutenant governor, mayor of Fairbanks, state representative and chair of a house telecommunications committee for five years, runs his own telecommunications consulting business and still stays in touch with the world via the Internet … ‘Where others saw a gimmicky device, I saw the promise, I guess – the promise of communicating with the world. This led to my later involvement in bulletin boards, distant delivery of education and the Internet. And the cyberspace as we know it today in the form of the Internet will be unrecognizable when compared to the future convergence of telephone, cable, computer and broadcast industries. And it’s happening as we speak!'”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: General, Overarching Remarks
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Anchorage Daily News
Title, headline, chapter name: Two Wired Guys; Lifelong Passion Keeps His Mind Young
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page F1
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne