MP3 players, etc. seem far beyond what the futurists of the last century were imagining.
Yes; the servant carrying a wax cylinder for the gramophone device was a huge miss.
It missed electronic amplification and loudspeakers, it missed miniaturisation of audio players, it missed room sized personal libraries of vinyl/tapes/CDs, and of course it missed digitisation of music and electronic or wireless transfer of information, and it potentially missed the ubiquity of cheap music such that he's more likely to have music playing in the background while doing something else than to sit down and listen to it as an activity in itself.
(and now that I think of it, why do they have robot builders, robot barbers, robot makeup machines, but still a servant to carry a song to him on a silver platter?)
My interpretation is that the wax cylinder is being used as a calling card to announce a visitor. If so, it's a miss for at least two reasons: 1. Why would you choose to listen to a calling card rather than read it and 2. social customs changed, eliminating the custom of leaving calling cards.
Yes; the servant carrying a wax cylinder for the gramophone device was a huge miss.
It missed electronic amplification and loudspeakers, it missed miniaturisation of audio players, it missed room sized personal libraries of vinyl/tapes/CDs, and of course it missed digitisation of music and electronic or wireless transfer of information, and it potentially missed the ubiquity of cheap music such that he's more likely to have music playing in the background while doing something else than to sit down and listen to it as an activity in itself.
(and now that I think of it, why do they have robot builders, robot barbers, robot makeup machines, but still a servant to carry a song to him on a silver platter?)