Tom: I was also at the Labs (Research @ MH) when these spots were made.

We were consulted by the PR people before they were shot.

As far as I know, most "predictions" in those spots were based on real technologies and demos that were running in the Labs at that time. My dept was directly responsible for two of them.

I do not recall the Dick Tracy watch but the projects behind the books on-line, video-on-demand and "EZ Pass" were being done at HO and MH.

Others were products or concepts in the pipeline (e.g. fax from a tablet -- remember GO/EO?, tickets from a cash machine -- NCR ATMs).

Some things shown were straight line extrapolations from core technologies that had existed in the Labs for some time (e.g. driving across the country without needing a map, video telephony, packet voice/video, etc.)

Much of the really interesting work from Research at the Labs never made it into real products from AT&T due to various political, business and regulatory issues.

Many things later got "reinvented" by other firms that were better able to capitalize on the innovation.

It has been said that any company that can afford an organization like Bell Labs Research will ignore it.

That was definitely the case for Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, etc.