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BlackBerry Predicted a Century Ago By Nikola Tesla

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the and-he-looks-like-david-bowie dept.

andylim writes "According to the Telegraph, the BlackBerry was first predicted more than a century ago, by Nikola Tesla, the electrical engineer. Seth Porges, Popular Mechanics' current technology editor, disclosed Tesla's prediction at a presentation, titled '108 Years of Futurism,' to industry figures recently in New York. Recombu.com has published the original Popular Mechanics article in which Tesla predicts a mobile phone revolution."

8 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. Yet another example of why... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Tesla was a freakin genius.

    Our entire modern world wouldnt exist without him. And he never got any credit while he was alive.

    Hell, theres STILL stuff he came up with that we have no understanding of. Yet.

    1. Re:Yet another example of why... by Mindcontrolled · · Score: 5, Funny

      While this is surely a worthwhile endeavor for a young novice of the Church of St. Tesla, St. Tesla's day should be a great opportunity to just try your hands on some electronics.

      Just follow these simple commands:

      Thou shalt not presente your body as a path for ye electrone to reach ground, lest ye be smitten down.
      Thou shall only manipulate HV circuits with one hand, keeping the other behind your back, lest thou presenteth a path for ye electrone through thine hearte and be smitten down.
      Thou shalt not touch a big-arsed capacitor without discharching it before, lest ye be smitten down.
      Thou shall always remember that woode is only an isolator below a certain voltage, lest it presenteth a path for the electrone and filleth yer room with holy flame and smoke.
      Thou shall always use a decent head-sink for yer MOSFETs, lest ye olde magick smoke escapeth.

      Keep that in mind and rise from the lowly status of novice!

      --
      Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
  2. Not Surprised by MaxwellEdison · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't find it very surprising that someone obsessed with perfecting the wireless transmission of electricity would envision the wireless transmission of information. The fact that he predicted Apple would abandon flash though, was a bit of a shock.

    --
    -=Bang Bang=-
  3. Re:That's all fine and good by Jurily · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, Tesla was talking about the Nokia N900, but the submitter never heard about that one.

  4. Re:That's all fine and good by lxs · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just wait until you read his letter on why the iPad sucks.

  5. Prior Art! by rnturn · · Score: 5, Funny

    It appears that Tesla thought of everything. So let's just toss out all those silly mobile patents and let the real innovation -- and competition -- begin.

    What did he have to say about audio and video encoding?

    --
    CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
  6. Tesla in 1909? Try Francis Bacon in 1623 by benwiggy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From Francis Bacon's "New Atlantis" of 1623:

    We represent also all multiplications of light, which we carry to great distance, and make so sharp as to discern small points and lines.
    We find also diverse means, yet unknown to you, of producing of light, originally from diverse bodies.We have also houses of deceits of the senses, where were present all manner of feats of juggling, false apparitions, impostures and illusions, and their fallacies.

    We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds and their generation. We have all means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances.

  7. Re:Count the misses, not just the hits. by painandgreed · · Score: 5, Informative

    Note that this article predicts both the Internet and wireless technology, but with no mention of the digital aspects.

    But he did. Telsa was the inventor of the AND logic gate. When computers started to catch on and research was done and people went to patent their inventions, some of them found out that Telsa already had the patents some more than 50 years earlier because he was already developing the same techniques while trying to control devices wirelessly. So, he did do that, it just wasn't mentioned in the article probably because it wasn't seen as important at the time and because it was quite simply beyond everybody else.

    When Tesla developed weapons for the military and displayed them at a World's Fair, he demonstrated remote controlled submarines and torpedoes and tried to explain how both the submarines and torpedoes could be controlled and guided wirelessly by operators far away. In a time where a simply wireless system that allowed ships to talk to each other reliably, submarines, or torpedoes would have been a major military breakthrough, the army and navy just couldn't even comprehend what he was talking about let alone figure out how to use remote drones effectivly.