Top ten worst predications for 21st century living revealed

Food bombarded with gamma rays, space-age suits, self-cleaning baths and a shower that dries you are just a few of the far-fetched ideas in the top ten worst predictions for 21st century living revealed today by the Ideal home Show.

As the Show celebrates 100 years of innovation with ‘Innovation Nation’, a nationwide search for the best original home invention of 2008, archives reveal how experts building the first ever ‘House of the Future’ in 1956 were rather far-fetched in their predictions of how we would all be living 50 years in the future.

Top Ten worst predictions for 21st century living:

Gamma rays will bombard meats, fish and dairy, killing germs and doing away with refrigeration. Electric sauce pans will cook food on any surface replacing hobs. Electric tables will rise from the floor and can be set to dining or coffee level. Roofs will be covered with aluminium foil to deflect the sun’s rays. Front doors will all be electric and folding. Houses will consist of a series of plastic pods joined by passageways. Showers will dispense both water and hot air to wash and dry you. Baths will be self cleaning with built in rinsing system. Nylon is the material of choice - we will be wearing drip dry nylon clothes and sleeping in nylon sheets. Men fashions will be inspired by superman and the space age.

It wasn’t all ‘Jetson’s’ sci-fi, there were a few predictions from 1956 the experts did get right. These include:

Small shortwave transmitters to turn on the TV: remote control. High frequency oven for cooking at high speeds: microwave oven. Broadcast-telephone to announce arrivals: entry phones.

Maxine Soghmanian, Ideal Home Show said: “We have a 100 year history of home innovation and have launched countless household products from the first ever electric kettle (1920) to largest home plasma screen (2006), but we have to admit some of the predictions in the fifties were a bit off the mark!

“To mark our centenary and our commitment to home innovation this year we are hunting for the best original home invention, so get designing if you think you can do better than the 1956 experts!”

TV scientist and invention enthusiast Adam Hart Davies, said, “If you can do better than the fifties experts – I want to your ideas! There is a budding inventor or designer in all of us and you don’t need any design qualifications to get involved. So if you have a flash of inspiration for a product that you think would work, then draw it, describe it and send it in.”

A short list of inventions to the Innovation Nation challenge will be voted on by visitors to the Ideal Home Show. The winning design will be crowned ‘Home Invention of the Year’. The designer will receive a £2,000 cash prize and year long contract with Inventor Link, specialists in commercialising new ideas.

For entry details to the Innovation Nation competition visit . Advice on protecting the Intellectual Property rights to your products can also be found on the website.

High resolution images of the 1956 House of The Future are available on request.