>It's always irked me that old SF writers couldn't have envisaged the likes of: mobile phones, hand-held computers and calculators, a solid-state recording device with a lens and mike, a word processor or one that's part of the mini computer, digital telephony, etc.

Speaking of which... while it's obvious that a SF writer can envision only some aspects of the future and must necessarily keep the others from the present (they still have one brain each), it's still hard to understand why they don't use the present sometimes...

Example: the new Galactica has a bunch of shady things done and several ongoing investigations... and no video surveillance. C'mon, every grocery or school has cameras everywhere, it's more of a problem to find competent people to keep an eye on them :)

Or the classic example of Star Trek operating without safety belts forever. And at least a dozen actors would have had much longer roles if only someone added the inflating bags to their consoles.