Browsing Tag
Time Machine
40 posts
The First Audiobook: an LP for the Blind
Before they started playing music, LPs were used to play books for those who couldn't see.
The Dream Recorder (of 1926)
Scientists are getting closer than ever to capturing the contents of our dreams, a goal since at least the 1920s.
Nikola Tesla and the Myth of the Lone Inventor
We like our inventors to be lone geniuses, but it's almost always the case that today's giant is standing on the shoulders of yesterday's.
Will California Build an Earthquake Warning System?
We're a long way from being able to predict temblors, but what if we had even a few moments of warning before the shaking started?
Adding a Horse to the Horseless Carriage of Yore
Nostalgic for the nostalgia of yesterday? Popular Science had a thriving enterprise in the 1930s that looked back at wacky inventions from earlier years.
Your Granddaddy’s TiVo
Inventors have been trying to find a way to silence ads since way before Spotify, Pandora and Grooveshark
Visions of Futuristic Air Travel (And Plenty of Leg Room!) in 1946
The vision of post-war air travel isn't all that different from what well-heeled fliers can get today, but what a long, strange trip it's been.
An X-Ray a Day Keeps Diamond Smuggling at Bay
One mine in 1919 South Africa had a foolproof way to see whether its miners were smuggling out raw diamonds: it gave them a radiation-laden scan at the end of every shift.