Interfered technology: A radiant future: A look forward to EMC in 2023, five years from now

In 1973, a three-part full-page article was published in the local newspaper describing our society in the region of Twente, the Netherlands, in 1923, 1973, and 2023 [1]. The author of this article was only 11 years old at the time, but the predictions made were interesting enough to keep that article for 45 years. The article [1] predicted several innovations for 2023, 50 years ahead, such as a magnetic levitation monorail from Twente to Amsterdam reducing the travel time from 2 hours to less than 30 minutes, as shown in Figure 1. However, all we got after 45 years was a new motorway, with lots of traffic jams, and a train that still takes 2 hours. Despite over a century of research and development, maglev trains are currently operated in just three countries: Japan, South Korea, and China. Other innovations predicted in 1973 for 2023 were clothes made by printers (yes, nearly), no cars in city centres (yes), products made in Shanghai (yes), European regions instead of European countries (no, although Catalonia would like this), no manufacturing but only research and development (no), Holec and Signaal merged (no, Holec split up into several divisions now owned by Siemens, Eaton, and General Electric, and Signaal was sold by Philips to Thomson-CSF, now THALES). And the announcement that the University of Twente will be organizing a conference on communication technology, including electronics. This was a very good prediction: communication technology will be a key issue in 2023.