The World's Fair and Technology: 8 Amazing Highlights

Ahead of next month's 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, we explore tech innovations--from the telephone to touchscreens--that premiered during the Fair's sprawling 159-year history

IMax

I don’t know about you, but when I went to see The Dark Knight at the movies, I had to watch it in IMax. The format’s early history is tightly intertwined with the World’s Fair. Canadian filmmakers Graeme Ferguson and Roman Kroiter presented films using multiprojector/multiscreen systems at Expo '67 in Montreal, and then they teamed up with childhood friend Robert Kerr and engineer William C. Shaw to devise their own larger single-screen system a year later. The first IMax film was created for Expo ‘70 in Osaka Japan (in the Fuji Pavilion), and some 5 million visitors viewed a 300-foot-by-213-foot IMax screen at Expo '74 in Washington, D.C. Also, the first permanent IMax 3D theater was built for Expo '86 in Vancouver, and IMax HD was first tested at Spain's Seville Expo ‘92.

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