The television has almost become as commonplace as the telephone in our lives, but it wasn't always seen as a useable technology. Reading over this article on the state of television from 1936 shows that not only was television once a lot worse than it is now (even with my terrible reception), but that it was reguarded as a silly concept that would probably never be used by anyone:

…President Roosevelt's face not only came and went, it came and went under water.

Today, we obviously know better; aren't we clever. Well, to be honest, no we're not. We're still making silly comments about new technologies that are having developmental difficulties. Who knows which of these “silly devices” will become the telephone or television for our children? Certainly, many of these technologies will fail and die, perhaps for no reason at all, but one or two of them are going to become an important part of our lives. One or two of the things we laugh at today are going to change the world.