Nikola Tesla predicted mobile phones in 1909
recombu.com
recombu.com
1. The inter-connection of the existing telegraph exchanges or offices all over the world
2. The establishment of a secret and non-interferable government telegraph services
3. The inter-connection of all the present telephone exchanges or offices on the Globe
4. The universal distribution of general news, by telegraph or telephone, in connection with the Press
5. The establishment of such a "World System" of intelligence transmission for exclusive private use
6. The inter-connecting and operation of all stock tickers of the world
7. The establishment of the World-System of musical distribution, etc.
8. The universal registration of time by inexpensive clocks indicating the hour with astronomical precision and requiring no attention whatever
9. The world transmission of typed or hand-written characters, letters, checks, etc.
10. The establishment of a universal marine service enabling the navigators of all ships to steer perfectly without compass, to determine the exact location, hour and speed, to prevent collisions and disasters
11. The inauguration of a system of world-printing on land and sea
12. The world reproduction of photographic pictures and all kinds of record
"The song of a great singer [...] may thus be delivered to an audience all over the world" sounds like radio to me. And the part about the businessman dictating in New York is followed by the qualifier "from his desk"--I'm not sold.
While technically radio transmission was invented earlier, according to Wikipedia the first radio station only went online in 1920 so there was still plenty of room for this kind of prediction in 1909.
The passage you quoted predicted broadcast radio, but the passage before that sounds more like a telephone to me. As with many others it underestimated the difficulty of transcribing voice into print, but otherwise....
Tesla is a whole different thing. Its not only fascinating to read how many things he foresaw, but also some of the things he predicted that still haven't happened and might. He was good at predicting both how devices would work and how they would effect society almost to the point where you start to wonder if he didn't invent that time machine after all and managed to keep it a secret.
Tesla had numerous flaws as well; but he was much more a pure inventor and ultimately uninterested in money. Probably the smarter of the two, and certainly his work was fundamental to modern life (i.e. AC power transmission).
There is probably a lot to take away from learning about both men equally :)
Tesla was a genius, but had little formal EE theory - he somehow intuited much of what he did. His high-frequency coils were not mathematically understood until well after his death.
Yes, he was completely wrong about that.
And ubiquitous wireless communication was a widespread idea at the time, here is an example from 1897: http://www.citizenarcane.com/index.php/archives/2005/03/28/e...
It's hugely inefficient to transmit power wirelessly.
About 8 years ago I conceived a plan to harvest power from electromagnetic waves permeating a particular space (my house I guess). It looks like free power (but of course isn't). If you can have a wireless radio then you can use that same power to trickle charge a battery, multiply by the various frequencies with powerful signals, etc., etc.. [I'm sure many others here have had a similar idea].
On a very short range this has come out as a gadget in the form of wireless charging pads (eg http://www.powermat.com/) and reports are out of using the trick above to charge lower power devices over long distances (http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/22764/?a=f).
Haven't seen anything of this sort in the shops yet though. I suspect it might not be legal in my jurisdiction.
Just because it hasn't been done yet, doesn't mean it can't be done. There may well be physical properties of our reality which haven't been discovered yet that will allow the efficient transmission of power through the atmosphere.
If you look at it from a needs basis...the world needs much more power (every Indian and Chinese family is eventually going to buy a fridge and a TV, and ricecooker etc etc). We can't go on indefinitely building billion dollar power stations to support that need.
There are two alternatives. An efficient way of transporting power long distances (continent to continent)...or...eventually localised power harvesting will be so cheap and ubitiquious that transporting power long distances won't be necessary. (Solar panels so cheap, like newspaper, they can be put on the roof and walls of every mud brick house).
Never say never is all I'm saying.
Indubitably, implicit in my statement is "It's [currently¹] hugely inefficient to transmit power wirelessly.".
I can imagine harvesting extra-dimensional power sources or vacuum-energy or as you say ultra cheap solar power conversion.
¹ No pun intended.