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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Dear All<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>‘Grace Cormet’s telephone
buzzed. She took it out of her pocket and said, ‘Yes?’
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>That passage was from Robert Heinlein’s short story, ‘We
also Walk Dogs’, published in a 1954 copyrighted Anthology, ‘The
Green hills of Earth’, described on the back of the book as the second
book of the future History series about life in the 21<sup>st</sup> Century.
Is this a first ever SF description of a wireless mobile phone being a routine
device?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>In John Birmingham’s ‘World War 2.1’
series the ‘pad’ computer is the universal personal possession /
communication device. Has this ‘prediction’
already been superceded by the powers of the just recently announced Apple Ipad?
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Anyone care to suggest instances of items that were optimistically
‘predicted in SF’ but which arrived ahead of time in the real
world?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Garry P Dalrymple<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Still waiting for my Aircar and personal jet pack<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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