By Michael J. McNamara, March 1989

This is my first published article predicting the future of digital photography and imaging. It was originally written as a term paper for Prof. Doug Rea’s new Electronic Photography course at RIT in early 1989, and months later published in the Electronic Photography Newsletter (by John Larish, the Editor, who had been a guest speaker in Doug’s class). The article accurately predicts the development of the PhotoCD (three years before Kodak introduced it), doctors using a “photophone” to diagnose illness (which became a reality more than a 2 decade later), online shopping, credit card chips containing photos of owner, and several other “futuristic” advancements that became reality. (see yellow dots).