Yesterday, The Jetsons celebrated its 50th birthday. It may seem like we’re living in the future these days, but half a century after the show’s original 24-episode run, we still don’t have a lot of that juicy future tech. Here are some of the most glaring absences.
Robot Maids
So we’ve got Roombas, and that’s a start, but we don’t have any kind of robotic assistance that’s remotely like Rosie. And she was an old model. Maybe if you gave Siri a little more personality and crammed her into ASIMO, you’d be about half-way there. But let’s face it; we’re a long way off. [clear]
Flying Jet Cars
Sure, we’ve got vehicles that purport to be “flying cars”, but those don’t count. The Jetsons’ personal little space car doesn’t need any wings or rotors, is totally ubiquitous, and even has some kind of departure-pod system. Also it folds into a suitcase, which would probably be against the laws of physics. The car itself doesn’t seem to be self-driving though, so we’re ahead of the curve there.
[clear]
Conveyor Belts Everywhere
We walk too much in the future. There are pedestrian conveyor belts in airports, but according to The Jetsons, they should be anywhere and everywhere point A to point B movement is required. Of course, walking isn’t that bad. Actually, it seems like obesity probably should have been a bigger problem in The Jetsons, right? Maybe they had a gadget for that too.
Auto-Hygiene Machines
You can buy an electric toothbrush, but that’s a far cry from a machine that will literally brush your teeth for you. Same goes for shaving, though you have to have a special sort of trust to let a robot start waving blades around your neck.
Orbital Buildings
We still live on the surface of our planet; nobody is building floating shopping centres yet. That said, we can still live on the surface of our planet, so that’s a good thing. There’s no telling what kind of hellish, apocalyptic wasteland was lurking below the Jetsons’ high-altitude utopia.
Floating Treadmills
Actually, this might not qualify as awesome. I think we can all agree the our lack of floating treadmills is a good thing. Really, what where they thinking? What kind of problem was this supposed to solve?
For all the things the Jetsons had that we still don’t, there are a few pieces of tech we did manage to come up with on our own, like voice control, video chat and the “televiewer” but I’ve still got my heart set on those flying jet cars.