In the 1970s, corporations were casting about for readily marketable consumer gadgets. The Presto Meat Toaster, the Dymo Label Maker, the Hot Beverage Machine, the Hot Lather Machine: the decade seemed to promise some life-transforming invention that never appeared. The breakthrough, when it came, would arise from attempts by Western Electric and various phone companies after the 1960s at “crossing a telephone with a TV set.” The first harvest of innovation came from Japan, starting with the Panasonic Toot-a-Loop AM-radio-and-bracelet, and culminating in the Sony Walkman, the great bridge
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