Smartphones, Smartwatches, and Robots: A 1960 Chinese Children’s Book Predicted How We’d Live Today (6 photos)

People have always been fascinated by the future, imagining what daily life would look like for their descendants 50 or 100 years down the road and hoping for a better world for generations to come.





Take a look at how Chinese children's book authors envisioned the future back in 1960—long before China became a global superpower, at a time when its citizens were suffering from famine following the campaign against sparrows.



The main character of the book

Little Smart Travels to the Future

comes across futuristic technology that was unheard of in the 1960s. Today, however, these innovations are an everyday reality.





In this illustration, children appear to be using a smartphone to video chat with a police officer.



Back in 1960, when the book was published, digital watches were nothing more than a pipe dream. Today, smartwatches are ubiquitous and can be bought for just a few dollars.



Students are shown studying in a classroom equipped with a flat-screen display, with devices in front of them that appear designed for speech recognition—a feature found on virtually every smartphone today.



And here are robots doing the work for humans!