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It
started with the telegraph (mid 19th century):
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“We
call the electric telegraph the most perfect invention of modern times
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...
as anything more perfect than this is scarcely conceivable, and we
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really
begin to wonder what will be left for the next generation, upon
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which
to expend the restless energies of the human mind’’
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(Australian
newspaper, 1853)
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But
also:
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“The
wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who
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would
pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” (David
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Sarnoff’s
associates in response to his urgings for investment in the
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radio
in the 1920s).
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