http://www.mardahl.dk/2010/01/30/making-the-future/ Thoughts about communication - technical, accessible, usable, and otherwise... Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:41:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.mardahl.dk/2010/01/30/making-the-future/comment-page-1/#comment-15104 Margaret Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:11:12 +0000 http://www.mardahl.dk/?p=647#comment-15104 My exposure to future tech possibilities was at Telaction Corporation, a subsidiary of JC Penny that attempted to develop interactive home shopping via cable TV and telephone in 1987. They created their interactive virtual malls on banks of laser discs (which is what reminded me of it in your post). After several years and several million dollars, the company folded because they couldn't sell the cable companies on the infrastructure investment required to make it a reality. The only part of the project that made it to reality was the interactive kiosks in the JCPenny catalog departments that provide shopping from their online catalog. The primary drawback of the whole project was that they were about a decade ahead of the internet technology that makes online shopping a reality today. My exposure to future tech possibilities was at Telaction Corporation, a subsidiary of JC Penny that attempted to develop interactive home shopping via cable TV and telephone in 1987. They created their interactive virtual malls on banks of laser discs (which is what reminded me of it in your post). After several years and several million dollars, the company folded because they couldn’t sell the cable companies on the infrastructure investment required to make it a reality. The only part of the project that made it to reality was the interactive kiosks in the JCPenny catalog departments that provide shopping from their online catalog. The primary drawback of the whole project was that they were about a decade ahead of the internet technology that makes online shopping a reality today.

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