Stop. Rewind

6:00pm – Wednesday, October 6 on ABC2

Every year tens of billions of dollars is appropriated to develop advanced weapon systems.

Since the end of the Cold War military researchers have turned their attention from weapons of mass destruction to a far more precise challenge of finding, tracking and killing individuals.

Welcome to Stop. Rewind and a short history of modern weaponry. For more than a few millennia the best weaponry available depended on what size rock you picked up. Now humans can kill anyone from anywhere on the planet.

Military technology has spearheaded many so-called advancements that are now taken for granted – from the internet and hypersonic planes, to spy satellites and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Stop. Rewind tonight explores breakthrough technologies that moved from the laboratory to the battlefield during the giant leap forward in technology from the mid-1980s to the beginning of the 21st century.

The program reflects on what the 80s and 90s generations thought future weaponry would deliver and considers what we’ve ended up with. Using images shot over the past quarter century Stop. Rewind also showcases some of the more hilarious and often hapless ideas that fell by the wayside.

Each weekly themed episode of Stop. Rewind shows the development of a tech industry, documenting how each latched onto new technology, materials, and designs to eventually become the common gadgets, goods and services we know today.

After looking at Robots and High Tech Homes in the first two episodes, Stop. Rewind tonight looks at innovations that really were a preview into the weapons of the future.

6:00pm – Wednesday, September 29 on ABC2

As we hurtle headlong into the digital age, Stop.

Rewind pauses to ponder how far we have come.

The 80s generation had no dot.coms and digital – a future they imagined has been transformed by a technology revolution.

Welcome to Stop. Rewind – a short history of the modern world – charting the good and bad of a quarter century of innovation.

From the giant leap forward in technology from the mid-1980s to the beginning of the 21st century, Stop. Rewind explores those ideas, discoveries, breakthroughs, dead-ends and eureka moments that shaped the latter part of the 20th century and laid the groundwork for the 21st.

Each themed episode shows the development of a tech industry, documenting how each latched onto new technology, materials, and designs to eventually become the common gadgets, goods and services we know today.

Tonight Stop. Rewind takes a specific look at high tech homes.

The 21st century home promised every labour-saving device you could think of – instant buildings, instant meals, instant clean! We had sensors tracking our every move, opening doors, turning on lights, and dimming the sound.

Our best friend, the computer, assured us the weather was good and announced our mail …

and the house was teeming with robots to do all the dirty work.

Even the garden had its own robot! The reality? All we want is a roof over our heads … and a widescreen TV! However, great innovations have been made with advanced building materials, urban sprawl, and alternative architecture.

6:00pm – Wednesday, September 22 on ABC2

Planes, trains, fast cars, high-tech homes, space exploration – Stop. Rewind is a television journey that plots the most innovative 25 years in human history.

From the giant leap forward in technology from the mid-1980s to the beginning of the 21st century, Stop.

Rewind explores those ideas, discoveries, breakthroughs, dead-ends and eureka moments that shaped the latter part of the 20th century and laid the groundwork for the 21st.

Stop. Rewind reflects on what the 80s and 90s generations thought the future would deliver and considers what we’ve ended up with.

Twenty-five years ago the world was a very different place – no digital, no dot-com, no cell phones, no blogs, tweets, nor many of the tech innovations that we now take for granted.

Using images shot over the past quarter century Stop. Rewind showcases the hilarious and often hapless ideas that fell by the wayside and those innovations that really were a preview into the future.

Each themed episode shows the development of a tech industry, documenting how each latched onto new technology, materials, and designs to eventually become the common gadgets, goods and services we know today.

In tonight’s opening episode Stop. Rewind looks at robots – they promised so much – but sadly it’s still a work in progress. Since the 50s we’ve been told a bold new world of robots was supposed to be around the corner – performing all those tasks no human would ever dirty themselves with.

But it’s not been through lack of trying – robots have revolutionised industry and they’ve even created robotic pets – but the ultimate aim – to create an independent, thinking, humanoid robot – is still coming…