Blue LEDs. We had red and green since the '60s, but blue took until the '90s to figure out and the guy who did so got a Nobel prize for it because that finally meant we could use them for white lights and full-color displays.
Everyone having a portable supercomputer that fits in their pocket that also has a network connection that allows for instantaneous global communications.
Vr is pretty damn cool IMO, also emulation.
The fact almost any computer after 2010 ish can basically play every single game made for every console ever up to probably ps1/ps2, is insane.
Well let's see. I was a nerdy kid in the 70s, so I should be qualified for this. I have to say though, my wildest dreams set a pretty high bar. I dreamed of cities in space and in the oceans. And on land, we'd build giant fusion-powered arcologies modelled after the space cities that recycled everything we used. We'd spent most of our time in these cities connected by tunnelled maglevs while the rest of the world returned to a more natural state and became a giant wildlife/archaeological park.
But I'm trying to think of what would have blown my mind to learn about back then that actually happened. I think from a technological perspective, I never saw the marriage between computers and telecommunications becoming all that it is today. I had a vague idea of something like a video cell phone, but the idea that you could grab a movie off it from some distant giant computer complex and throw it up on a big screen in your home would've made me giddy. And just the quality of the image and the fidelity and depth of sound that could come out of tiny speakers would've been shocking. Sound systems were really, really shitty in the 70s. And TVs. Well, let's just say there was a reason you went to the cinema.
The science nerd in me would also have been blown away by discoveries made since the 70s. Birds are dinosaurs? There were real life hobbits running around on some island in Indonesia? There are ocean moons in our solar system? And if I showed up to explain all this to my kid self, he would not have believed my age when I told him. Medicine is keeping us younger now.
The Nazis are back.
Cameras in general. Good quality film cameras took some work and were heavy. Like bookbag heavy. Youβd have to carry a little set of filters (thin lens caps that screwed onto the main lens) in addition to another lens or two to get a good range of options. Now, tap, done. Copies? NP. Black and white? Tap. No need to use up the roll of color film and then switch to black and white film.
SDR (Software Defined Radio)
Its insane how many things you can do/listen to with a simple cheap USB stick.
I think a 1970s American would get a kick out these:
I don't think the 4tb micro SD card actually exists. They top out at 2tb which might be the maximum for the protocol. Your photo actually says SDHC which is clearly a mockup since SDHC was 32GB maximum. 4TB would have to be SDUC which is the level after SDXC. Sandisk announced a 4TB card last year but I don't think it was ever shipped, maybe due to the AI-driven shortage.
Partial AI slop: https://electronics.alibaba.com/buyingguides/4tb-microsd-card-reality-check-(2026)
Without any sarcasms... That is some kind of wild shit.
Two income households that still can't afford a single-family home.
Even the 1tb ones cost too much now. What, are data centers using those too??
Last night my sister and I had a 90 minute conversation on our phones with full-colour, hi-res video, me in the UK, her in NZ. It didn't cost either of us anything. We're in our 70s, such a thing was unimaginable back in the day.
Voluntarily being surveilled and profiled 24/7.
i might get shade for it, but LLMs.
I recently bought a JBL Trio everything in one box music thing.
It has the ability in almost real time, there's a bit of buffering, to unmix any music I stream to it from my phone. You can dial out vocals, the guitar, drums, etc.
Being able to separate the tracks in audio, let alone do it in basically real time, would have seemed like black magic in the 70s. Hell, it seems like black magic now.
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