Science fiction has always been a medium for futuristic imagination and while different colored aliens and intergalactic travel are yet to be discovered, there is an array of technologies that are no longer figments of the imagination thanks to the world of science fiction. Some of the creative inventions that appeared in family-favorite movies like “Back to the Future” and “Total Recall” are now at the forefront of modern technology
The Mobile Phone
The first mobile phone was invented in 1973 by Martin Cooper and was a bulky thing that weighed 2.4 lbs. (1.1 kg) and had a talk time of about 35 minutes. It cost thousands of dollars.
- A long-standing rumor was that Cooper got his inspiration for the phone from an episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk used a hand-held communications device. However, it is more likely that the original inspiration was from a comic strip called Dick Tracy.
Digital Billboards
In Blade Runner, digital billboards were used to decorate the dystopian metropolis of Los Angeles.
- Director Ridley Scott presents a landscape shot of futuristic Los Angeles in the movie “Blade Runner.”
- While scanning the skyscrapers, a huge digital, digital, almost-cinematic billboard appears on one of the buildings.
Space stations
The space station in “2001: A Space Odyssey” resembles the International Space Station (ISS), which has been orbiting the Earth since 1998 and currently accommodates up to six astronauts at a time.
- Although Space Station V appears much more luxurious, the ISS has accomplished much more science.
Hoverboards
Marty McFly was able to hover over any surface, even water, with the hoverboard.
- Although they aren’t as widespread as the film perceives, hoverboards now exist. The first real one was created in 2015 by Arx Pax.
3D holograms
A hologram is a 3D image created from the interference of light beams from a laser onto a 2D surface and can only be seen in one angle.
- Researchers have created a real hologram using a technique called volumetric display, which works like an Etch-A-Sketch toy but uses particles at high speeds.
Driverless Cars
Johnny Cab in Total Recall couldn’t move unless he had the destination, ultimately leading to his demise
- The idea of having a car that takes you to your destination using its onboard satellite navigation has become increasingly popular
- Waymo wants to eradicate human error and inattention that results in dangerous and fatal accidents
- NASA stated its intentions to help with driverless cars
Bionic limbs
Even though using prosthetics had been common for a long time, Star Wars sparked an idea for bionic prosthetics.
- Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, have been developing a way for amputees to control each of their prosthetic fingers using an ultrasonic sensor.
Artificial Intelligence
Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) can only distinguish the AI and real humans by a ‘Voigt-Kampff test.’
- Some people might be worried about the potential fallout of giving computers intelligence, which has had disastrous consequences in many science-fiction works.
- But AI has some very useful applications in reality.
The universal translator
While exploring space, characters such as Captain Kirk and Spock would come across alien life who spoke a different language.
- To understand the galactic foreigners, the Star Trek characters used a device that immediately translated the alien’s unusual language.
- Although the idea in Star Trek was to communicate with intelligent alien life, a device capable of breaking down language barriers would revolutionize real-time communication.
Teleportation
The transporter is an iconic feature of the original Star Trek series.
- Two entangled particles may be very far from one another, yet remain connected so that actions performed on one affect the other, regardless of distance.
- Scientists haven’t figured out how to teleport humans yet, but they can teleport balls of energy known as photons.
Tablets
Tablets are wonderful handheld computers that can be controlled at the press of a finger
- These handy devices are used by people across the globe, and even further upwards on the ISS.
- Apple claims to have invented the tablet with the release of its iPad, but Stanley Kubrick and Sir Arthur C. Clarke did, by including the device in 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Samsung claimed that these tablets were the original tablet, featured in a film over 40 years before the first iPad arrived in 2010
