It's 1892 and automobile inventors in Europe and the United States are just starting to rev up their engines. But a lot of kinks remain to be worked out. In Iowa, William Morrison's electric car can travel just four miles before its batteries run out. Henry Ford in Michigan, the Duryea brothers in Massachusetts, and other inventors in Germany and France are tackling similarly daunting challenges on cars of their own design. In 1892, it's difficult.
Telegrams can carry a message-but only in one direction at a time.
Drawings and diagrams must be sent by train and ship. It's no wonder that several decades would pass before the auto would rule the road. Imagine how much more quickly the automobile would have developed, had this kind of collaboration and communication been possible a century ago. Telecommunications networks like the one used by Ford today, or that you use when you pick up a telephone, were hardly even dreamed of in the 1890s. These networks enable you to receive television and radio programs, send faxes, telegraph money, and communicate via computer with people all over the world.