http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png http://io9.com/tag/house of the future http://io9.com/tag/house of the future

The future ain't what it used to be. Satirist P.J. O'Rourke took his family to see the newly opened House Of The Future at Disneyland, and it was closed for repairs. ("HoFII has a subprime mortgage, or so it appears," he writes.) But he did get a good enough look at it to discover that it's barely futuristic, and most of its supposedly futuristic ideas are actually annoying as heck. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5101598&view=rss&microfeed=true

We’ve already discussed Disneyland’s new, improved (i.e., more corporate) Microsoft/HP House of the Future AKA Innoventions Dream Home. Here’s a quick tour of the original Monsanto House of the Future (plenty corporate in its own right, of course—everything was plastic!). There's even what looks like a communal toothbrush and shaving stand and a chirpy narrator inviting strangers to use it all. P.S. There’s also a peek of Tomorrowland, circa 1957, at the beginning of the clip—wish I could hop in the wayback machine! More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5027835&view=rss&microfeed=true

OK, flies is an overstatement—the UFOoid Hoover Constellation vacuum cleaner floats on a cushion of air, as this commercial makes abundantly clear. Don't miss the row of dazed housewives pretending to be fascinated as the Constellation scoots down the table, all the while secretly wondering where to get their next scrip for Miltown. Mmm, floating through housework. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=392719&view=rss&microfeed=true

"What'll It Be Like in 2000 A.D.?" asked Popular Science in its April 1962 preview of the marvels to be found at the Seattle World's Fair, which opened that month. First up on Popular Science's tour of the future was the Standard Oil diorama. Not surprisingly it featured a host of gas-guzzling vehicles for land and air—and failed to predict either fuel shortages or oil at $100 a barrel. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=364722&view=rss&microfeed=true

A bored housewife, her "chromium butler," and a condescending workman from Ray's Robot Repair star in Leave It to Roll-Oh (1940), a film short originally shown at the New York World's Fair of 1939-40. Roll-Oh answers the door, vacuums the rug (with his foot), and makes dinner, among other domestic chores, thus freeing the housewife to ... read magazines? Don't miss the repairman's impressive use of techno-babble to confound a presumably ignorant female client, a scenario that's not exactly extinct in today's world. Wish she'd use that button marked "Scram!" More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=363129&view=rss&microfeed=true

From his first job at Scientific American circa 1900 to his retirement in 1956 as science editor at the New York Times, Waldemar Kaempffert wrote widely about the sciences. As you might imagine from the man who penned yesterday's Popular Mechanics article, Kaempffert was a man with grand plans for a future world made better by science and industry. In 1918, he explained one of them, related to pneumatic tube meals, in a letter to the editor of The New York Times. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=361412&view=rss&microfeed=true

In 1950, Popular Mechanics magazine visited the world of the future, which turned out to be an imaginary suburb called Tottenville, home of a pretend family named the Dobsons. So what was life like for the Dobsons in the year 2000? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=360714&view=rss&microfeed=true