Sci-fi has always amazed us with ideas of strange and wonderful tech that will make all our lives easier, whether it’s Marty McFly’s hover board or Tom Cruise’s impressive hand waving interface. The same question always gets asked. When will we get this tech? Is it even possible? Well not only is much of it possible, plenty of gadgets you use today include tech straight out of science-fiction. Here are just a few pieces of technology that have brought us into the future.
1.Holograms
Since that Hologram shark burst out of the screen in Back To The Future 2, we’ve been patiently waiting for hologram TV. Even with televisions getting more and more advanced and power, it still feels like we’ll reach that point. Well, it turns out we already have, utilising some pretty astonishing gadgetry. The fabulously futuristic sounding ‘interferograms‘ disrupt laser light displays to create 3D images. We may not be at the stage of a fully 3D jaws just yet. But the Japanese market is set to roll out function holographic TV in 2017.
2.Smartphone Glass
Now here’s a piece of tech that we pretty much all enjoy but almost never think about. If your old enough to remember the days before the iPhone you might shudder thinking about struggling with old touch screens. Not only were these screens difficult to actually use, but good lord were they fragile! You’d have to have them covered in a thick plastic protector which made them even harder to use. Plus even the protectors were liable to crack at the slightest provocation! All that changed when Steve Jobs discovered that he could use Gorilla Glass for the iPhone’s screen. The rest, as they say, is history. Smartphones became sturdier and easier to use and, as we now know, would come to dominate the world in a way few could have expected. It might not be the most glamorous sci-fi tech in the world, but for those of us who can remember a time before it. It’s hard not to feel like we’re living in the future. You can find out more about Gorilla Glass at sites such as (http://www.ithingum.com/whats-gorilla-glass/)
3.Flying cars
No, really. Actual flying cars. Well, alright technically they’re hover cars. But still! One of the clearest and most visible signs of living in a sci-fi world is the presence of the hover car. From Blade Runner to The Fifth Element, you want to let an audience know they’re in the future? Stick a hover car in their face! Now we’re not quite at the stage of having the streets filled with flying vehicles just yet. But plenty of companies have announced plans for prototypes. Volkswagon have shown off a concept video for their over hover car, based on several proven technologies. We might not have flying cars just yet, but they’re so close we can almost taste them! (Note: it’s best not to try and taste cars, hovering or otherwise.)
Interstellar travel, cyborgs and the matrix might still be way off. But technology like this is taking us a few steps further towards the science fiction world we’re dreaming of.