5 visionary gadgets from the 60s that predicted the future

When you think of 1960s technology, you probably imagine things like the space race or nostalgic gadgets that all baby boomers remember using back then. Although much of it seems outdated in 2026, the 1960s were a time of incredible technological advancement. It was the decade when humanity successfully landed on the Moon, and inventions like the laser, Kevlar, and the artificial heart quickly proved their usefulness. However, other designs from the decade would not be widely used until much later.

For some of them, the technology was not yet ready to enable widespread adoption. Others, like new telephone or light bulb technologies, were not yet affordable to use or produce, nor were the products really compelling to consumers at the time. Although they wouldn’t be appreciated until much later, these visionary inventions of the 1960s were way ahead of their time, predicting or laying the foundation for things we still use or work on today.

Although it’s not really a gadget, the Internet is worth mentioning because of its importance and the fact that few people realize how far back it goes. The Internet as we know it was created when the World Wide Web went public in 1993, but the foundations were laid nearly a quarter of a century earlier. The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was created in 1969 by the U.S. Department of Defense to allow researchers to communicate and share information securely via computers located in different cities and even countries.

What made this possible was the development of packet switching, which allowed data to flow across a network and reassemble without relying on a single node. Otherwise, the failure of one device would bring down the entire network with it. ARPANET was a far cry from the modern Internet, but later work led to the creation of TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), protocols that are still used to connect devices on networks. It’s no exaggeration to say that the introduction of the Web changed everything, and it’s thanks to the engineers of the 1960s that we’re to blame.

Skype, FaceTime and similar platforms popularized video calls, but the technology to see the person you’re talking to on the phone dates back to 1964. In April of that year, AT&T’s Bell Labs introduced the Picturephone at the New York World’s Fair. The demonstration consisted of eight booths where guests could video call each other, or sometimes, an additional booth set up at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

The exhibition was popular, but subsequent trials did not go as well. In June 1964, AT&T installed Picturephone theaters in New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., that anyone could use. However, few actually used them, with a maximum of 71 calls in the first six months. A commercial Picturephone service introduced in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1970 also failed to gain traction. Bell Labs continued to develop Picturephone technology until 1973, when a new AT&T CEO arrived and ended the project.

Much of the Picturephone’s failure was due to cost. In June 1964, renting two rooms for a conversation cost between $16 and $27 for the first three minutes, or between $171.88 and $290.05 adjusted for inflation. For Pittsburgh, AT&T charged $160/month for equipment, service, and the first 30 minutes of calls, plus $0.25/minute for any additional calls ($1,373.28/month and $2.15/minute). The cost of running and using video calls had to come down significantly before it could reach enough people to be truly useful. This is why it took decades before the technology was widely adopted.

LED lights are almost everywhere now, but they were invented much earlier than you probably thought. The science behind them was discovered in the 1900s and 1920s, but the first practical LED lights for commercial use were invented in 1961, and Texas Instruments released the first LED product the following year. However, they were much more expensive than incandescent bulbs, and it would take decades for LED costs to drop enough for widespread use to be possible.

Early LEDs were inefficient and weak, and it took a long time to develop blue LEDs, essential for creating bright white lights and color displays for things like smartphones. This challenge was so great that the scientists who ultimately succeeded in creating blue LEDs were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work. Since then, LEDs have come a long way, and scientists continue to make technological breakthroughs that show they aren’t going away any time soon.

Smartwatches and other cool wearable devices have become popular for health, fitness, and productivity, but the first laptop was actually invented long before the average person even owned a PC. In 1961, two MIT mathematicians, Edward Thorp and Claude Shannon, developed a small computer that could predict roulette outcomes. Yes, the first handheld device was designed to cheat at the game.

The computer, the size of a cigarette pack, was hidden on the person of a nearby observer and was operated by a switch in the person’s shoe. The wearer timed the wheel using their big toe to enter data. The computer would then calculate the most likely outcome, offering a significant advantage, and send the information to a receiver in the bettor’s ear in the form of different audio tones.

Thorp and Shannon tested it in Las Vegas and found it quite accurate, although the wires connected to the speakers frequently broke. Despite their success, the two men decided not to pursue the project, fearing they would get caught by the casino, a place likely run by the mafia at that time. Thorp went on to invent other devices for gamers until the state of Nevada banned them in 1985, after which he published a paper explaining the origin, development, and successful use of the first portable computer.

Artificial intelligence is everywhere these days, from chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude that can help with everyday tasks and answer questions to robots that are starting to take over the human labor industry. Although the humanoid domestic robots we were promised in science fiction stories have yet to manifest, advances in AI are making this future more possible. That’s why you might be surprised to learn that the first AI robot was made in the 1960s.

Shakey the Robot was a project carried out by SRI International from 1966 to 1972, and it is considered the first mobile robot capable of perceiving its environment and reasoning based on it. According to the SRI, Shakey could “perform tasks requiring planning, route finding, and rearranging simple objects.” These functions are basic but incredibly impressive considering the era.

Shakey’s creation and improvement led to the development of new techniques like the A* search algorithm still used in computer science to find the shortest path and the Hough transform used to find geometric shapes like lines in digital images. In 1970, Brad Darrach of Life magazine called Shakey “the first electronic person.” Shakey’s impact on robotics and artificial intelligence cannot be overstated, which is why he was inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in 2004 and now resides at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.