It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news.
Apple's new video iPod holds up to 150 hours of video, showing it on a nifty 2.5 inch display. The iPod has a far greater capacity than H.G. Wells' moving picture player, from his 1899 novel When the Sleeper Wakes.
Apple's new device comes in 30 and 60 gigabyte models; they can hold as many as 15,000 songs and up to 25,000 photos. The bright 2.5 inch color display lets you take your movies (or tv shows or home movies) with you and display them at will.
H.G. Wells' imagined device made use of memory cylinders, which were inserted into the player:
He puzzled over this peculiar cylinder for some time and replaced it. Then he turned to the square apparatus and examined that. He opened a sort of lid and found one of the double cylinders within, and on the upper edge a little stud like the stud of an electric bell. He pressed this and a rapid clicking began and ceased. He became aware of voices and music, and noticed a play of colour on the smooth front face. He suddenly realised what this might be, and stepped back to regard it. On the flat surface was now a little picture, very vividly coloured, and in this picture were figures that moved. Not only did they move, but they were conversing in clear small voices. It was exactly like reality viewed through an inverted opera glass and heard through a long tube. His interest was seized at once by the situation, which presented a man pacing up and down and vociferating angry things to a pretty but petulant woman... (Read more about H.G. Wells' moving picture player)
Bill Christensen catalogues the inventions, technology and ideas of science fiction writers at his website, Technovelgy. He is a contributor to Live Science.
