News Briefs
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These "News Briefs" features from Radio-Electronics magazine (c1967) are always interesting. As has always been the case, some of the items predicting the future of technology are either too wacky to ever be realized, or science has not yet advanced far enough. Many - maybe most - products and concepts have advanced far beyond even what the-present-day inventors imagined. This month's column is full of mostly the latter types. A "lineless" (i.e., cordless) telephone (not cellphone) is demonstrated by Bell Telephone Labs, with no mention of the frequency band. The "pocket television," presented by Sony, nowadays takes the form of a smartphone, and the programming is received via an Internet connection rather than directly from local broadcast towers. The "world's smallest detect," operating in the infrared was built on a germanium substrate (maybe the bumble bee thought it was a geranium substrate?). When I first saw RCA's giant UHF antenna, I thought it was the barrel of some sort of cannon. Turns out those slots are not cooling ports but radiation ports. Given that the world is not (and never was) filled with such devices, the concept must have never proven feasible. New Briefs: 11/1957 | 8/1958 | 11/1959 | 2/1960 | 4/1960 | 8/1960 | 3/1961 | 5/1961 | 6/1961 | 12/1961 | 3/1963 | 4/1963 | 8/1963 | 9/1963 | 8/1964 | 12/1964 | 1/1967 | 3/1967 | 4/1967 | 9/1967 | 4/1968 News Briefs
RCA's 76-acre test site near Camden, N. J., is being used to check this 13 1/2 ton uhf TV station antenna. Energy is radiated from the oblong slots in the 114·foot cylinder. Lineless Telephone Bell Telephone Laboratories' experimental telephone - shown with case removed - contains a transmitter, receiver, ringer elements, antenna system, signaling circuit board and rechargeable batteries. Provides simultaneous 2-way conversation (not push-to-talk) as well as dialing and ringing. Range is 100 to 1,500 feet from a fixed station. World's Smallest Detector Germanium-immersed infrared detector (tiny black area in center of white circle) is dwarfed by the bee's eye. Detector is .04 inch in diameter. Produced by Barnes Engineering Co., Stamford, Conn., for spacecraft instruments to study Earth. Pocketable TV Future TV sets, judging by this Sony model, will b about half the size of a carton of cigarettes, weigh only 2 pounds, use integrated circuits and 1 inch CRT, receive all VHF and UHF channels, and operate on AC line or batteries.
Posted November 23, 2023 |
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