The Stuff of Spys

“Reception on the dashboard, here [showing Bond a radar]. Audio-visual. Range a hundred and fifty miles.” - Q (Goldfinger, 1964)

Above: James Bond’s car radar* and the now ubiquitous GPS

I remember watching the James Bond Goldfinger where Q was explaining some of the more advanced features of his modified Aston Martin for James - A radar tracking device. Wow. Quips James, “ingenious, and useful too. Allow a man to stop off for a quick one en-route.”

How far we’ve come that the gadgets that we take for granted today far surpass those of the early super-spy (well ok, so I’m still waiting for my ejector seat). The radar tracking device from Goldfinger looks incredibly archaic compared to today’s satellite navigation and GPS systems.

*Sorry, I couldn’t find a screenshot.

Change of Times

Above: Hiding a short, encoded message inside of a coin [left] and hiding multiple DVDs of data in the same coin [right]

Another interesting spy gadget, this time used by real sleuths in the 1950’s, was secret messages hidden in hollow nickel coins. Now the concept seems almost trivial with the size of MicroSD cards these days. Indeed, someone has produced an updated version of the classic hidden message coins, which allows you to carry gigabytes worth of data in loose change.

So now you too can smuggle classified Soviet data through secruity checkpoints!

Smart Phone

Operator: “What number are you calling?”
Smart: “I’m calling Control, Operator…”
Operator: “You have dialed incorrectly. Give me your name and address and your dime will be refunded.”
Smart: “Operator, I’m calling from my shoe!”
Operator: “What is the number of your shoe?”
Smart: “It’s an unlisted shoe, Operator!”

Above: Maxwell Smart trying to reach Control on his ShoePhone and its evolution into the modern mobile phone

And of course, Maxwell Smart single-footedly invented the mobile phone. His telephone, cleverly disguised into a shoe was surely the inspiration of the Nokias of the world. So let us all pay homage to the totally iconic ShoePhone! I reckon you could probably make one of these - though the abuse the phone would take being stomped on all the time could be a problem… (on second thoughts, probably about as much as a drunken night on the town).

In a Blue Moon

Funny how so much of the technology predictions of the past were based around transportation—flying cars, tube-based transport, jet-packs, space colonies—yet it is one area that has been stagnant by comparison. We are still being propelled along by the internal combustion engine and have yet to reach space cheaply (though we’re close).

Above: The Apollo Lunar capsule [top] and Verne’s manned projectile to the Moon [bottom]

An exception from the past is prehaps Jules Verne and his remarkably accurate predictions about getting to the moon, in 1856. He predicted details like the size, weight and velocity of a capsule required to reach the moon over 100 years before the first US Apollo missions and before modern rocketry. Pretty amazing.

I wonder if the internet as we know it will be passe in 50 years?