For most of my life, I've had devices at my fingertips
that would allow me to get in touch with anyone,
anywhere, at any time.
So it makes me think, have we already reached our futuristic dreams
of hyperconnectivity?
And if not...
...what could possibly lie ahead?
I'm Marques Brownlee and I review dope new tech,
but on this show, I'm rewinding the clock
to look at the tech of the past
that we thought would be our future.
This is "Retro Tech: Hyperconnectivity."
Hey, what's up? MKBHD here.
And today we're gonna be talking about communication technology,
or more specifically, hyperconnectivity.
Instant communication.
And the tech we're about to unbox today
comes from 1984.
I got no idea what this is.
Let's find out.
Okay.
So, this says "Phone-Mate."
"Answering machine with beeper-less remote."
Answering machine? Oh, yeah.
I remember answering machines.
Every phone you've probably ever owned
has always had voicemail.
But when you go back to the '80s,
you had to build that and buy that.
Pretty revolutionary, when you put it that way.
Let's see what's inside.
Hey!
Oh, you saved your voicemail
on a cassette.
Wow, that is definitely wood,
but a lot of things had wood grain on them
in the '70s, '80s, '90s, even.
And then you have to open up in here.
That's where your cassette tapes go, right there.
I have a messages cassette for recording
and your voicemail that everyone hears
when they call you this side up.
Uh, tech has always been just a little finicky, hasn't it?
"Place the back edge of the telesette
under the lip of the cassette tape holder."
That's what I've been doing.
"Press the front of the telesette
downward until flat."
That's what I've been doing.
Is there another lever somewhere?
Oh.
It should've been that easy. Tapes are in.
This is my first personalized outgoing message.
I got 26 seconds. Gotta be efficient.
Hi, you've reached the Brownlee family. We may or may not be home.
We'll hear this message when you leave it,
just leave your phone and name after the tone.
Marques' voice:
We may or may not be home.
We'll hear this message when you leave it,
just leave your phone and name after the tone.
Here's that friend you had where their voicemail
was tricking you into thinking you were talking to a person.
- Hello? Hey, how's it going? - Marques voice:
Sorry, speak up. I can't hear you.
- I was just say-- -
-
This is a voicemail. Feel free to leave your name and number at the tone.
-
If you think about how far we've come
with communication in the last 37 years,
you have no choice but to think,
what do we have in the next 37 years of our future
And how much further can we even go?
Well, that's what we're here to find out,
so let's get into it.
- Welcome to "Retro Tech." - Thank you.
First thing I'm gonna ask you to do
is check underneath your chair.
Underneath my chair?
Oh, this is what my dad was talking about.
This is the old joint.
Oh, no, does this have a tape deck in it?
Oh, yeah.
The lovely early '80s faux wood. This is perfect.
Marques: All right, we can put it to the side and we can talk tech.
If I zoom all the way out
to the beginning of communication tech,
how did this whole thing start?
When you talk about the evolution
of instant communication,
you start with the telephone back in the day.
- ( line rings ) - ( phone rings )
- Woman: Hello? - The telephone was a game-changer.
People for the first time could actually have conversations
with people who were not in the same room as them.
This was unheard of.
But you had to kind of be tethered
to that wall where it was plugged in.
Oh, hello!
And if you weren't home, you would not get the call.
Not only that, you wouldn't know who had called.
There was no caller ID when telephones first came out.
You missed out. You literally just missed out on what could have been.
So, was getting something like an answering machine a big deal?
So, you've never had an answering machine with a landline?
I came into the game at the very end.
Stephanie:
Adesina:
freedom from being tethered to your home phone against that wall.
Brenda:
You could check your messages.
Man:
It allowed instant access to communication,
but not on a specific schedule.
Announcer: The future of the telephone business
is bright and rich with promise.
Stephanie:
technology around landlines took off exponentially.
Adesina:
new tech was coming out for telephones,
and there was a lot that we could do with landlines.
Announcer: Wouldn't it be nice if life could be a little easier?
Back in the '80s, features that came
with landlines as they advanced were a huge deal.
We had two-way call waiting, where you could be on a call,
you would hear that beep.
"Hold on. I got a call on my other line."
- Hello, Jim? - They had three-way calling,
so you could have almost a conference call.
They had call forwarding, so if you weren't gonna be home,
you could forward the calls to the place where you were going to be.
And then aesthetically, they had everything--
fun colors, ginormous buttons,
the clear phone, where you could see the guts of the technology.
We had some pretty innovative landlines at the time.
But we're never satisfied because sci-fi
has been tantalizing us with video communication.
McFly!
- Hello! - Hello.
- How good to see you again. - So, in the '80s and '90s,
tech companies were teasing us
about the video phones of the future.
AT&T in particular had this commercial campaign called "You Will,"
and started marketing to regular people
things like, you will tuck your baby in at night via video chat.
This is one vision of the future,
with video screens linking via phone lines
to anywhere in the world.
We wanted video phones
because that represented the future,
even though the technology just wasn't there yet.
Marques:
for most people in the early '90s,
tech companies put a lot of more effort
into a more familiar innovation-- landlines.
So, today, I'm joined by comedian Chuck Nice
to check out some retro landlines
that seemed futuristic at the time.
This is Dope Or Nope.
- Chuck Nice. Thanks for joining me. - Hey, man.
Always a pleasure to be here, to be with you, that's for sure.
We're looking at some older tech today.
Yeah, I heard you say "landline."
Yes, I feel like, you know,
maybe you'll be a little more familiar.
I know. He's calling me old. That's all.
All right, our first item comes to us from the year 1988,
and it's this right here.
Chuck: Mitsubishi.
Visual Telecom. Picture phone!
- And then this is it. - Wow, look at that.
This is the unit. Oh, that's a chunk.
- That is a camera. - It is-- oh, and it--
- and it closes for privacy. - That is ahead of its time.
Yes. Here's the problem. You've gotta have one of these on the other end.
Well, it's funny you mention that, Chuck.
- Oh, my God! - Some surprises.
Wait a minute! Not only are we retro to the max,
but we're solving race relations at the same time!
All right. Plug this in here.
- You want to do the honors? - Here we go.
- Oh, it's a live-- - We both have a picture.
Oh, wow, look at that. It's a live shot.
It's weird that we're, like, discovering cameras right now.
This is pretty cool, man.
I really need to see if this works.
I just tried to call my wife.
It's not ringing. It's not working.
Oh, my God. My wife is on the phone!
- Really? Jesus. - This phone works, bro!
- Oh, my God! Hey, baby. I'm with Marques. - Woman:
Let me see if there's a speaker phone on this thing.
- Hold on. -
I do not enjoy speaker phone.
We're doing a show. You're not gonna be on speaker phone.
- Like, that's boring. -
All right, I gotta go. Bye.
( both laugh )
"As images are received, up to three are stored
on a first in, first out basis."
But I guess it's not video.
This whole thing is for three lousy pictures.
( beeping )
( ringing )
Never pick up on the first ring.
Makes you look very, very needy. Hi, hello?
All right, you might be getting a picture right now.
Oh, my God. You are-- boom!
- Wait, okay, now you send one. - Check it out.
- Oh, there it is. - Yo, did you get my picture, man?
- I got it. I got it! - Yeah.
I don't have much of a practical use for this
other than this is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time.
Even in 2021, I kind of still want one.
- This is dope. This is definitely dope. - This is dope. Yeah.
That might be the easiest dope I've given.
All right, this next item, Chuck, comes to us from 1999.
- Hyper VideoPhone. - A newer version of the video phone.
- Gigantic. - It's huge.
- It looks very office-y. - I'm a fan of this right here.
- Adjustable angle. - Now, that's cool.
I don't know why it would go that far down.
I don't know what you're showing on this video phone.
- All right. - So you have yours.
I've got mine. I'ma just call your number.
- ( ringing ) - I wonder if you'll see me.
I don't know why that startled-- look, I can see you on the--
- Oh, that's crazy. What's good? - Yo, what up, homey?
- It's a much better screen, I'll tell you that much. - It's color now.
We are making technological progress here,
but it's not that much better.
I think there's an element of it being more impressive with the older tech.
It's better, but it's not quite the same level as a game-changer,
as, like, the first one.
So, Hyper Video Phone, not as dope,
'cause there's levels to this.
- Right? - But it's dope.
Chuck: A little less dope, but still dope.
All right, our next item comes to us from the year 1998.
What in the heck? 3D Tel-Mouse?
it's a mouse telephone.
Oh, no.
The setup disk.
If only we had an entire computer.
Wow!
Look at that.
Here you are, 1998.
You're working on a very important document
and you have to make a phone call.
What do you do? You have to stop your work.
- I put it my little... - Time-Life earpiece.
- And then I-- - You have to dial.
- ( phone rings ) - Oh!
Wassup?
Yo, this is the worst headset I've ever--
- It's the worst headset. - It's all good.
I'ma just hang up real quick from the mouse.
- ( dial tone ) - Okay.
- Wow. - Maybe they're thinking,
"What if your phone is a part of your computer?"
But that was a lot to go through to make a phone call.
This is ultimately just a kind of clever workaround idea
that will inevitably die when you can do both at once.
- Right. - So, the conclusion, at the end of the day,
the 3D Tel-Mouse, that's a nope.
That's a nope.
- Chuck, thanks for joining me. - Always a pleasure, man.
- Appreciate it. - And it was so fun talking on the phone.
It's been a while.
Nowadays, when we look at a laptop or a computer,
we know it's a communication device.
But before the era of Internet connectivity,
we had no idea where we were headed.
You think about that "Today" show interview where Katie Couric
and Bryant Gumbel were like, "What's the Internet?"
Alison, can you explain what Internet is?
What, do you write to it, like mail?
A lot of people just still didn't get it.
Adesina:
the telephone.
It worked well. We loved it.
We were not mad about it.
And when the Internet first came out,
if you wanted to connect, you had to unplug
your phone physically
and connect that to your computer.
Imagine if you still had to do one or the other.
People would just not make a phone call ever.
Adesina:
that's gonna disable our telephone line
in order to do this completely other
type of communication that we'd never seen before?
That was the trouble that AOL had to overcome.
Voice:
AOL had to convince Americans
to go online for the first time.
The head of marketing says,
"Print up as many discs as we can
and get them in front of people however we can."
- And it worked. - Announcer:
the company making cyberspace easy to use and understand.
At one point, it was estimated that 50% of all CDs
made in the USA were AOL CD-ROMs.
AOL was the primary way that most Americans got online for the first time.
- I never used AOL. - Marques, how is that possible?
What was the experience of, like, actually using AOL?
Brenda:
It was like a one-stop shop for everything.
Later on is when they came out with AIM.
When AIM chat came out, it was the first time
that we could have instant communication via text.
You put your buddy list, you'd add all your friends,
and when someone would get online,
you would see that they were online,
and you could message them.
Brenda:
When I had a crush, you'd immediately
jump up and check to see if it was that person.
Brian:
the primary way to keep in touch with your friends
was to go on AIM.
Brenda:
and that still allowed you
to instantly get in touch with somebody.
Marques:
for early AIM chat users?
Since I've never used it, I've invited fellow
YouTube creator Sara Dietschy to show me the ropes.
Sara, welcome back.
I'm very excited, but I'm very disappointed
that you've never used AOL Instant Messenger.
It's a phenomenon I've heard a lot about and read a lot about,
but what was your experience
- living with A.I.M.? - It was so fun.
I would come home from school and that would be the first thing I logged into.
You would just have multiple chats going on. It was just a blast.
Well, you've probably already noticed, these two computers here behind me,
- they have AIM on them. - Wow.
We might as well just jump right in to that experience.
I'm so excited right now.
( modem connecting )
Well, there's the logging on to the Internet sound.
That sound is anxiety-inducing,
'cause everyone had to be off the phones.
"Oh, no, Grandma's calling." The afternoon is shot.
Marques: Okay, let's try it.
Sara:
- is already peak nostalgia. - Screen name and password.
- MKBSD. 'Cause, you know. - Chick22Sara.
And then, uh, sign on is that little green guy.
Connecting!
( gasps ) Some windows are popping up.
Here we go. Probably a logical first step is add a buddy, right?
Yeah. Add me.
Family, coworkers, or buddies. Add buddy.
I'm honored that I'm a buddy and not a coworker.
-
So, you've never heard that sound before?
No, it sounded like a door.
- Marques. - A creaking door?
So, I'm gonna double click on your name,
- and that is a new instant message. Send. - I got an IM.
- Do you know "NM"? - I do.
Yeah, so this is probably where these conversations would start out.
Not very riveting. But once you started talking to your friends,
you didn't want the conversation to go stale.
But you're sitting there, you want to keep asking questions.
-
You are the most boring 6th grader ever, Marques.
"How's the weather"?
You can change your font, which is very exciting.
And, say, I have an opinion about you,
I'm gonna make the font really in your face.
Okay, so now it's time for you to make your away message.
I have a good one, I think.
"BRB. Doing homework."
- And then... - This dude.
- It lacks emotion. - Really?
- We need a song lyric. We need, you know... - Oh.
...you're off by the pond pondering life.
I'm gonna change it. I never wanted to do homework.
I'm changing my away message. All right, there it is.
- I hope that works. - Wow.
"I get knocked down."
BRB. Mom has to use the phone."
- This is before you got your first phone. - Mm-hmm.
AIM was a symbolic beginning of freedom of communication.
And it felt like my own world,
with my friends, no teachers, no adults.
So, how'd I do?
I mean, this was your first AIM experience,
so I think you did a great job.
Marques:
into the hyperconnected state that we're in today,
so where else do we go from here?
With all the different inventions that we've seen in sci-fi,
it's communication where we've actually pretty much achieved
a majority of the things that we've seen.
We have cellular services.
We have two-way wrist watches.
We have video calls. We have all of those things.
So, what's next?
There is one future where the mobile phone
becomes an implant in the online human.
How about a brain implant?
Imagine wanting to talk to your mom
and just kind of blinking and saying "Mom,"
and there she is right in your head!
That technology is being created right now
and it's right around the corner.
All of this speaks to how we want instant communication.
We don't want to wait. We don't want a busy signal. We want to talk now.
Marques:
simply through our thoughts seems like a technology
that's far off in the future.
But a company called NextMind has developed a device
that may prove it's closer than we think.
When I look at the slot, it moves the paddle in "Brick Breaker."
Holy smokes.
Every button is pulsing light
in different ways, and it's reading my brain
through my skull and my skin and my hair.
So, it's on the outside looking into my brain.
I had an experience with the NextMind, had my mind blown.
So, exactly what part of the brain is this device reading and how does it work?
Your brain generates some electricity.
That's how neurons communicate with each other.
And if we put a device here,
we can record the neural activity,
we translate the neural activity,
and then you can see that translation directly on the computer.
And it's on the back of your head.
Is that because there's a lot of activity
that's very useful coming from the back of the brain?
It's measuring activity of neurons on the visual cortex,
which is on the very back of the head.
When you see things,
this is happening in the visual cortex.
Just by recording the activity,
we can create a symbiosis
between the visual environment and your brain.
Does this feel like the next logical step
of literally just sending a thought from one person to another?
In just a few decades, we're gonna just, like,
communicate telepathically with each other.
Oh, wow.
Remember, your brain is a computing machine,
so the visual cortex is really the strongest part of the brain.
So if there's access to your visual cortex
to transmit it directly rather than using speech,
it's totally feasible.
But what if you could communicate
much, much richer thought?
Basically, if you can capture the intentions directly in the brain,
you just have to imagine it, and what's really happening
within your mind is projected by a telepathic link.
The only challenge is a technical challenge
of having the right sensors to analyze,
translate the data at the speed of thought.
So, in a way, it's like a more rich version of language.
That's a crazy future.
This is definitely going to happen,
and it's just a question of time
and improving the technology.
That is really exciting.
I'm looking forward to what you guys are working on.
Thank you so much for the time.
I've learned a lot, and I'm gonna get back to training.
All right, so in the world we're living in now,
it seems like we've come so far from phone calls to A.I.M.,
all the way to, like, instantly being able to talk face to face
with anyone in the world in a high-resolution multi-person video call.
But the future of not even having to lift a finger
or say a word and you just
transmit your thoughts to another person,
or communicate with a smart device,
like, that's pretty wild.
That's definitely something to pay attention to.
Either way, that's been it. Thanks for watching this one.
Catch you guys later. Peace.