Failed Technology Predictions from the Past

Predicting the future is a dangerous game. The best you can hope for is that people forget what you said. Sadly, the worst predictions are the ones which seems to stick around the longest, haunting the prophet forever (see "640K ought to be enough for anybody").

Wikipedia has a page dedicated to failed foresight. Some of the highlights:

"Television won't last. It's a flash in the pan." – Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948

"The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." – Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.

"Self-operating [vacuum] cleaners powered by nuclear energy will probably be a reality a decade from now." – Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955

And probably our favorite:

"Home Taping Is Killing Music" – A 1980s campaign by the BPI

It's easy to laugh, so now it's your turn. Predictions for the future of technology in the comments. I'll start. In ten years, there will be no more desktop computers.

Failed Predictions [Wikipedia via BoingBoing]