Wrist Watch

Eighty-six years ago tomorrow, on October 4, 1931, the Dick Tracy comic strip debuted. The crime fighter comic, owned by the Tribune syndicate, is still in publication. When I was a child we used to receive three Sunday newspapers, one being the Chicago Tribune. It was likely that newspaper where I would read the Dick Tracy comic. I have not seen a Dick Tracy comic strip in years, so I am not sure of its relevance to the situation in the nation today. I do not know what the comic strip crime-fighting police officer would think of the national anthem protests by NFL players and teams, but I do know that the strip did change to be more relevant over time. The comic strip would regale readers with technological wizardry and use of forensic science long before Apple Corporation or the television show CSI.

In a strip in 1946, the year the baby boom generation would begin, the creator of the strip, Charles Gould introduced the two-way wrist radio. This device would allow communication with other members of the police force. It may or may not have been a secure network, and Dick Tracy never likely thought of the need for such radio security. In 1946 Russian hacking was not even a blip in the imagination of the Charles Gould, and it did not play the role it plays seventy years later. He would not have been aware of Equifax where hackers obtained information on millions of people. In 1964, the last year associated with the baby boom generation, the wrist device of Dick Tracy moved from radio to a television-type screen. This is likely the device with which I, when reading the comic, would be familiar as a child. I know I am not the only person to have been captivated by the wrist television and radio. The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, would note in 2015 how he had been waiting since the age of five to be able to communicate by phone on his wrist. His comment was probably a reference to the Dick Tracy comic strip. What Dick Tracy used was near reality with the Apple Watch introduced 51 years after it appeared in the comic strip. With the Apple Watch, you still need your I-phone, but you can track fitness, receive a phone call, do email, and send a Facebook message.

Apple Watch

Perhaps someday the functionality of the I-watch will increase to that of an I-pad. Yet, technology also brings challenges that Dick Tracy never had to deal with at the advent of his new technologies, but which now unfortunately are not uncommon for us to deal with in real life. Besides Russian hacking, and Equifax, there is the ever present Nigerian prince scam, but more importantly identity theft. Dick Tracy never used a credit card in 1964, so he did not have to worry about his card number being used to purchase items a 1,000 miles away. He did not have an internet connection (long before Al Gore even know of the internet), so he did not have to worry about his personal information being compromised.

What Charles Gould did was take what had become a common device by 1946 (radio) and 1964 (television) and miniaturize the items. The I-watch is going the other way, making watch faces larger in order to better read. Perhaps Gould’s greatest thought was miniaturizing a radio, as the television communication screen was a logical next step. Video conferencing is more and more becoming common place. As the baby boom generation is now retiring they see the millennial generation taking advantage of real life devices Dick Tracy made real for us boomers as we read his comic strips in the 1960’s. Real life imitating comics.