This is the second part of an article looking at a 1967 report that examined what the world would probably be like in the year 2000.  The first part of the article can be found here.

Prediction: The home as a hub for entertainment and leisure activities.  Just after talking about something as goofy as using pneumatic tubes to deliver food, the report completely nails the world of tomorrow (that is, today).  While only talking about videotapes, which at that point were still expensive (Sony’s cheapest VCR was $1,240), and things like DVDs, Blu-Ray and downloadable content were scarcely even dreamed of, the report quotes the Wall Street Journal as saying that “As electronic devices pipe more and better entertainment into the home, some experts foresee less demand for outside activities such as movies, concerts and live theater.”  Not only does it discuss the use of timeshifting, it also mentions that broadcasters could show less popular programs at odd hours, knowing that people who wanted could tape them and watch them later.

Prediction: Holography.  Ah, holograms, the technology that’s always five to ten years in the future.  Not only would we have holograms by the year 2000, we would decorate our homes with them: “the theme of a room [could change] from Greek Temple to Turkish Harem, or French chateau with the flip of a switch.  Even conventional decorative devices such as rugs and wall coverings can be projected effectively with holography.”  That is, they could if it existed.

Prediction: The disappearance of restaurants in airline terminals, and of prepared food on airplanes.  To quote from the study: “Highly efficient processing from plane to city will be so speedy that few travelers will need to spend time in the terminals.”  Also, we won’t be eating on planes because they’ll all be supersonic transport planes that can get practically anywhere in 2.5 hours, and on the biggest (with a few hundred passengers) it’s impossible to feed everyone within 2.5 hours.  Instead, the report suggests “that vending machines will be a likely solution to this problem.”  As it turned out, supersonic transports were expensive (because they burned huge amounts of fuel), only used over the ocean (because people were so annoyed with the sonic booms they produced) and dangerous (no civilian supersonics have flown since one crashed in Paris in 2000).  As for the prediction about the efficiency of the airlines in getting people to their destination quickly—I’ll just say that I’d like to live in that alternate universe.

Prediction: We won’t be eating food pills.  The report notes that food pills are being developed at Pillsbury “for the space program but are not being considered for the commercial market.”  This one, obviously, is correct.  Food pills are a cute idea in science fiction but won’t ever come about in reality, especially not now when the trend is toward organic, more natural foods.

Prediction: Increased air travel will change Americans’ tastes.  This gem is hidden away in the Conclusions section of the report: “The more people travel, the more sophisticated their tastes become.  Air travel will contribute to the American taste for varied national foods.”  Absolutely correct.  As Americans moved from the 1960s to the 70s to the 80s, tastes did shift in favor of more international foods, and the fact that more of us were traveling is one reason why this happened.

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All information in this article is from the folder “French (R. T. French Co.),” Information Center Records Box 4 of 24, J. Walter Thompson Company Archives, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.