Jules Verne: The prophet of modern technology

Verne was born in 1828 and in his books said that in a future there would be unthinkable devices for the time that would make people’s life much simpler. In his book “Paris in the twentieth century” written in 1863 and published in 1994, described a dehumanized and tyrannized society by technology. It mentions a railway that runs through the city, urban lighting generated with electricity, some “calculation instruments” which are similar to the current electronic calculators, a worldwide "telegraphic" communications network (internet?) with a system of personal and instant messages that replaced the common letters used at that time (e-mail?).

This book also describes our society, caught up in machinery, vehicles and technological tools to make easier our daily life. It also mentions inventions such as the “phonotelephote” that according to Verne it allowed "the transmission of images by means of sensitive mirrors connected by wires,” this device sounds as a pioneer of today’s videoconferencing technologies.

In his novel “From the earth to the moon” anticipates the moon landing with specific details about the spaceship, the landscapes of the moon and even that the astronauts would become weightless in space. He made these predictions more than a hundred years before the Apollo project.

He saw all these technologies with a century of anticipation. How could he do that?

Do you think that Verne was a prophet or just a good guesser?  How would you describe the world in a hundred years from now?

here you can see a trailer of a movie called "The Fantastic World of Jules Verne" inspired in his novels which are full of modern machinery.