Many of today’s tech trends are bringing us further into a sci-fi conception of reality. We are paying with our cell phones, streaming video instead of calling, and even drinking soy-based protein shakes instead of eating regular food. However, there are some parts of the future that belong more to the ’80s than the 2080s. Some styles of art, tech, entertainment have a new retro feel to them.
One such visionary is Love Hulten, a designer in Sweden that creates retro-futuristic gadgets based on how people thought the future would look in the past. They are all fully functional, and point toward a way of interacting with new technology that is both glossy and charmingly out of date. Of course, this would all just be a side-project of an interested artist if it weren’t also being capitalized on by the commercial sector. The art, while interesting, is more important in how it informs how the future of tech may look. He has also created a retro version of a 1980’s style arcade machine, complete with joystick buttons and solid wood cabinetry designed to bring an interactive experience with an older feel to it.
“Some parts of the future belong more to the 80’s than the 2000’s”
One other example of this is the new Retro VGS, a game console that runs on current tech in old ways. It wants to bring back the old-school fascination with the medium of physical video game cartridges with modern equipment. Underneath the sleek design that looks like the 1980s-era Atari Jaguar, the Retro VGS uses state-of-the-art solid state drives to run and store information on the machine. It is aimed at replicating fully the feel of 16-bit consoles, down to the power level. This means that it will be trying to run software roughly as complex as the old Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, which came out in the 1990s.
Old technology without switchboard operators is coming
Retro everywhere
Of course, not everything in the retro revolution is related to video games. Sometimes people just want to talk like it’s the old days, not stare at pixel graphics. In that case, the new Skype phone from Digital Cowboy may be what companies want. The DC-NCTEL1 featured recently in Ars Technica automatically opens Skype when its handset, which looks like it came straight out of the 1950s, is picked up. The device is powered by its USB plug into the computer, so it just sits there and works to transform your digital call experience into something quite a bit more old-school.
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