Just a Japanese lady standing awkwardly with a mainframe

Fujitsu GS 8900 mainframe computer, Japan, 1997.

… and another Japanese lady standing awkwardly with a mobile phone.

NTT Docomo i-mode mobile telephone, Japan, 2001.

 

Ancestors of 2053’s Sexbots

Aibo: “No, master, I don’t have any ports big enough for that.”

I’d forgotten that around the turn of the 21st century somebody at Sony seriously posited these barely functional, limping, chirping real world-embodied Tamagochis as a high-end pet. Sony stopped making them in 2006. I last looked at these images on my hard drive in 2002.

Latte: “Are you Sarah Connor?”

Macaron: “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”