Many an armchair fantast seems absolutely convinced that Google Glass might soon render street crimeobsolete . The cerebration goes that when everyone is under the insomniac center of a entanglement - connected faceputer , your uncouth street hoodlum will no longer be able to rob with impunity . We ’ve been down this route before .
about every shiny new futurity - agitate technology — whether it’smetal detectorsorsmartwatches — concisely becomes the foolproof puppet for offence - fighting and personal safety equipment . The event are inevitably mixed . In fact , foretelling similar to those being made about Google Glass today were made well-nigh a hundred ago about a similarly alien innovation . So what was the futuristic crime - fighting technical school of 1923 ? Radio , of course .
https://gizmodo.com/walk-through-metal-detectors-were-invented-to-catch-thi-520336775

Writing in the September 1923 issue of Radio News cartridge , inventor Aubra R. Dunham imagined that people of the time to come might stockpile a flashlight - sized push - button radio beacon , make most street criminal offence a thing of the past . Dunham even included some exemplification for how to make your own “ radio torpedo . ” These “ guns ” were n’t nauseous weapon , but rather hollowed out flashlights that could act as a radio transmitter , alerting nearby listeners ( and perhaps one day the law like a shot ) that help was needed .
Less than 10 - percentage of American households had a radio receiver in 1923 . But with the speedy elaboration of radio engineering science in the early 1920s ( it was n’t just for other adoptive parent anymore ) , multitude like Dunham were getting emotional about possible new uses . Before broadcasting would be seen as wireless ’s primary function , there was plentifulness of boundary - examination in other guidance .
As Dunham wrote in Radio News :

It is certainly true that there is no “ future ” for the criminal . radiocommunication can , and will , be a great law-breaking preventor [ sic ] , as the radio set tec is coming into his own .
There are thousands of radio set in every city , and thousands more are being installed every solar day . There are several in every city block .
Now , a humans carry a miniature sending post in his sack , as a flashlight or gun can be carried , would be grievous quarry to the criminal no matter how colored the night . For all he would have to do in edict to obtain help would be to press the push on this simple small gadget which it is now possible to construct . Even his location can be check without any further effort on his part than to urge on a push . conceive what a gadget of this nature will mean to man for shelter of his life and place !

The cover of the cartridge holder ( top persona ) included a plate aegis do which sent a distress call to the fancied Radio Protective Corporation — a bit like the individual security company we sleep with today . But the handheld models were the main focal point of the article , and a cut - away illustrated version of the equipment was include below . Battery - power and portable , it would summon help with piffling more than the push button of a button .
People will always be obsessed with have the humankind safer through technology . And in some cases it undoubtedly has . I ’ll allow in to feel a second nude whenever I leave my apartment without my smartphone , though perhaps something as simple as the landline telephone is a better — or at least , earlier — representative of tech that has unquestionably saved many life .
But as with every new technology of the twentieth hundred , nothing of the twenty-first century will make us whole safe or stop citizenry from doing horrendous thing to each other . Which does n’t have in mind we should block up trying , but it should perhaps putterribly tone - deaf web log poststhat speculate otherwise into perspective . Portable communications engineering may indeed aid to keep or solve crimes . But with1.6 million smartphones stolenevery yr , those hand-held technologies are sadly just as likely to be the target of any mugger today . Even more so when you ’re talking about a $ 1500 couplet of Glass .

Images : scanned from the September 1923 issue of Radio News
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