WHERE ARE WE AT WITH…?
Ever heard someone say “Where’s my jetpack?” Usually they don’t actually mean they want a jetpack, but it’s allegorical of the desire for the future promised in the past. Perhaps it was a news-report, or an article in a magazine half-jokingly suggesting the phone of the future, or how hairdressers will work in an imagined technological utopia.
Here’s the thing, we HAVE jetpacks. By “we” of course, I mean humans. I don’t have one, nor do you probably, nor anyone you know. Jetpacks have been built and flown for decades, and with increasingly sophisticated and efficient designs. Despite this, the supposed personal must-have we imagined we would all be using, is just a toy. There’s very little business interest or large scale take-up of this erstwhile tool of the future.
It highlights how design, invention, research and development don’t follow linear rules. Sometimes the concepts we heard about are still in the pipeline, close to completion. In other cases, they hit an insurmountable hurdle and fizzled out.
And then there are topics that are constantly changing and advancing. That hole in the ozone layer? It went away, and then came back, and so on.
You’ve no doubt wondered to yourself “Where are we at with…?” about several things over time, so this is a podcast intended to answer just those questions. Whether it’s a completely new technology that will change the way we live our lives, or just an update as minor as the latest iPhone model tweak, we will bring you the latest from the people in the know, in many cases those working on the coalface of that very idea.
Just trying to bring us our jetpacks.
Images created using Gemini and ChatGPT
Podcast music written and performed by Michael Wilimot
Production and design assistance from Claire Macmillan and Julie Newton