Yesterday's absurdity often becomes today's reality. 

In 1953 Tex Avery created a cartoon around the future of television (see below).  While much of this cartoon was meant as satire, a surprising amount of this content has come to fruition.

Consider the list below.  The primary bullets are points made in 1953.  The secondary bullets reflect the view from 2008.

• TVs embedded on kitchen appliances.
  • Speculation around "the connected home"
• Home's built around TVs
  • Computers are networked around homes
• One simple knob controls your TV
  • One simple scroll wheel controls your iPod
• Designers face issues of complexity in "simple" interfaces
  • Have you used a media center remote?
• TVs that are tailored to user preferences
  
  • Differentiated portable media players with larger/smaller sizes and functions
• TVs that can fix themselves
  • Firmware updates and remote assistance
• Guests and friends who think they can tune your picture to perfection
  • Guests and friends who think they can figure out your 7 remotes
• A nice TV set with a ridiculously large and ugly external antenna.
  
  • Beautifully simplistic flat screens with miles of ugly wires
• A TV that serves as the fourth member of your card game
  • Social gaming
• A set that addresses the privacy issues associated with video chat
  • Nowadays we call it the "video off" button
• A set that disposes of annoying commercials
  • We call it Tivo
• Too many channels, nothing to watch compelling
  • Sounds like last night.
• TV and the movies get a little too similar
  • And that's another reason why I will never watch Terminator: The Sarach Connor Chronicles
• Multitasking viewers under perform at their primary task
  
  • See Greg V's post here.
• Fishing with a fishing rod via a TV set
  • One word: Wii
• Gambling through your TV
  • Online gambling
• With all the diversity, technology is worthless without compelling content
  • Wow.

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