Alright, so Carousel of Progress is at Magic Kingdom, not Epcot. But its futurism would fit right in at its cross-town sister park. This show (it's not really a ride) was devised by Walt Disney for the 1964 World's Fair. In it, an animatronic family shows off how the latest technologies of different eras are making life easier, from the turn of the century ("our icebox now holds up to 50 pounds of ice!") on up. It was Disney's dream for the attraction to be continually renewed to keep up with changing times. But since the show was last updated in 1994, it is ripe ground for anachronisms and misguided visions of the future.
In the final scene, the family is shown playing a virtual-reality space-pilot game. The characters use a wearable joystick (a glove) to move a spaceship through a game. Real-world motion is mimicked onscreen—a lot like what Nintendo has done with the Wii and what Microsoft is looking into with Project Natal. The characters also reference "laser discs and high-def TVs". One of these technologies is ubiquitous today, and the other is nearly dead. Also on display in this show is voice-activated home automation, in which the father character is able to adjust the oven just by saying "oven temperature to 375." While such functionality is certainly possible today, given recent advances in voice recognition and home automation, it's hard to imagine voice control being a more practical controller than, say, an iPhone.
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