Just a quick reminder that we all have terrible track records when it comes to predicting where technology will go...

1. “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their
home.” — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.
(DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in
1977.

2. “We will never make a 32 bit operating system.” — Bill
Gates

3. “Lee DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his
signature that it would be possible to transmit the human voice across the
Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading
statements, the misguided public … has been persuaded to purchase stock in his
company …” — a U.S. District Attorney, prosecuting American inventor Lee
DeForest for selling stock fraudulently through the mail for his Radio Telephone
Company in 1913.

4. “There is practically no chance
communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone,
telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States.” — T. Craven,
FCC Commissioner, in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went
into service in 1965).

5. “To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him
into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can
make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth - all
that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say
that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances.”
— Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, in
1926

6. “A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s
atmosphere.” — New York Times, 1936.

7. “Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic)
and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.” - Simon Newcomb; The Wright
Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later.

8. “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” — Lord
Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal
Society, 1895.

9. “There will never be a bigger plane built.” — A Boeing
engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten
people

10. “Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a
reality in 10 years.” -– Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt
Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.

11. “This is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The
bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.” — Admiral
William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy
during World War II, advising President Truman on the atomic bomb, 1945.[6]
Leahy admitted the error five years later in his memoirs

12. “The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is
a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the
transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.” — Ernest Rutherford,
shortly after splitting the atom for the first time.

13. “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear
energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be
shattered at will.” — Albert Einstein, 1932

14. “The cinema is little more than a fad. It’s canned
drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage.” -–
Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916

15. “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a
novelty - a fad.” — The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry
Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Co.,
1903

16. “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.

17. “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be
seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no
value to us.” — A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).

18. “The world potential market for copying machines is 5000
at most.” — IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had
no market large enough to justify production, 1959.

19. “I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any
sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at
sea.” — HG Wells, British novelist, in 1901.

20. “X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” — Lord Kelvin,
President of the Royal Society, 1883.

21. “The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron
coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous.” — Comment of Aide-de-camp
to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916.

22. “How, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind
and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have
not the time to listen to such nonsense.” — Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of
Robert Fulton’s steamboat, 1800s.

23. “Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste
of time. Nobody will use it, ever.” — Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889
(Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC
power).

24. “Home Taping Is Killing Music” — A 1980s campaign by the
BPI, claiming that people recording music off the radio onto cassette would
destroy the music industry.

25. “Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan.” — Mary
Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.

26. “[Television] won’t be able to hold on to any market it
captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a
plywood box every night.” — Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox,
1946.

27. “When the Paris Exhibition [of 1878] closes, electric
light will close with it and no more will be heard of it.” - Oxford professor
Erasmus Wilson

28. “Dear Mr. President: The canal system of this country is
being threatened by a new form of transportation known as ‘railroads’ … As you
may well know, Mr. President, ‘railroad’ carriages are pulled at the enormous
speed of 15 miles per hour by ‘engines’ which, in addition to endangering life
and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside,
setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children.
The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such
breakneck speed.” — Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1830(?).

29. “Rail travel at high speed is not possible because
passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” — Dr Dionysys Larder
(1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College
London.

30. “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial
value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” — Associates
of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio in
1921.