Science fiction has always been pretty good at predicting the future of technology.
Although their visions don’t turn out to always be 100 per cent accurate, fantasy books, movies and TV shows are still your best bet for getting a glimpse at what tech may look like in the future.
An easy example that most people will recognize is Star Trek, which predicted the coming of cellphones (remember the trusty communicator?), flat screen monitors, face-to-face video conferencing and more.
Of course, I’m still waiting for a matter transporter and virtual reality holodeck – as well as contact with a scantily clad green alien lady from Orion – but you can’t have everything, can you?
And it is more than just Capt. Kirk and his intrepid crew who were able to give us a sneak peek at upcoming tech and toys.
Jules Verne foresaw submarines and the moon landing in his book Paris in the Twentieth Century, written in 1863. H.G. Wells predicted atomic bombs in The World Set Free, and George Orwell saw the government prying into people’s lives to an uncomfortable degree in his book 1984 (bringing to mind the NSA snooping in people’s emails, data mining and wiretapping non-terrorism related folks in the U.S.).
Heck, there’s even a book called Stand on Zanzibar, written by John Brunner in 1969 that’s set in the year 2010 in the U.S., under the administration of “President Obomi.”
I know, weird, right?
But true science fiction fans will know that 2015 is supposed to be the year when we get to have flying cars, hoverboards and robotic servants that walk the dog… at least according to the movie Back to the Future II, that is.
Fans of that 1989 blockbuster will remember that Michael J Fox’s character, Marty, travels (in a time-skipping DeLorean no less) to Oct. 21, 2015, where he was greeted by all sorts of crazy and futuristic technology, including the aforementioned hoverboards.
And while lots of news articles in the new year have covered how many of the movie’s predictions have been way off – like self-tying power shoelaces, robotic dog walkers, food hydrators and self-sizing clothes – some of the tech seen in Back to the Future II actually does exist today, or is coming out later this year.
In the film, several of the characters are seen wearing smartwatch-like gadgets on their wrists, much like many of us will be doing when Apple releases its Apple Watch (which pairs with your smartphone) later this year.
Characters also sported video glasses in the movie which bear quite a resemblance to the upcoming Oculus Rift virtual reality headset coming out this year (finger’s crossed), and seemed to function like the highly anticipated Google Glass (rumoured to be releasing to the general public this year, as well).
Flat screen TVs and video calling were also featured as future tech in the movie, as were drones, tablets and hands-free video gaming.
Remember, all that tech of today was predicted at a time when the Nintendo Electronics System (NES) was the height of video gaming technology and the Internet had pretty much just been invented.
Okay, so we don’t have flying cars like in the movie, but with the way a lot of people drive, I’m kinda glad we don’t have the capability to be zooming around high over people’s heads. But, and this is no lie, we do have hoverboards coming out, if you can believe it.
According to reports, a company called Hendo Hover has already raised some $450,000 in an online Kickstarter campaign to create an actual hoverboard using magnetic fields.
You can even see a video of pro skateboarder Tony Hawk using a prototype of the board on YouTube. Of course, I won’t believe it’s real until I’ve broken some bones trying one out myself.
But think about it. What we see in today’s movies as outlandish and impossible gadgets of tomorrow will likely be nothing more than everyday tech our grandkids take for granted.
In the meantime, I look forward to all the new technology we’ll be seeing in 2015… although I’ll probably never get to meet that green Orion girl.
