People have always wondered what will the future bring. Thousands of
novelist and ordinary people often wonder what’s to come and try to predict what life
will look like in next centuries. Many inventors worked on new inventions,
gadgets and solutions which advanced our technology and brought us closer to
the future.
How many of us have seen some kind of a futuristic movie or read a
futuristic book with gadgets we wished to have at our disposal. “Brave new
world” by Aldous Huxley offered us an outlook on the future of genetic
modification and in vitro fertilization. Hopefully we’ll have more common sense
not to push it that far, and we’ll use it only to improve our life not to
substitute ourselves for preprogrammed clones.
A well-known futuristic author Henry George Wells in his “Time Machine”
offered us first insight into what future might be like and in which direction
we might be heading for. His outlook on
the future was not to bright – he predicted the collapse of the mankind as we
know it due to some kind of world war. Just recently another well-known author
Dan Brown in his bestseller “Dante’s Inferno” informed us of even more
realistic threat to the mankind – overpopulation.
Also movie writers dwell on the future in numerous more or less
realistic versions of what’s to come. Just to mention a few: “A.I. (Artificial
Intelligence)”, "2001: A Space Odyssey",
“World War Z”, “Book of Eli” and many more.
Some
of those predictions were about times that already passed, about present day or
near future. But all of those show us also many futuristic solutions or gadgets
that we were supposed to have already or soon develop.
Just
at the beginning of this month I read an interesting article about a company
called HUVr which claimed to have developed one of those gadgets that many of
us probably dreamt to have. Namely the Hovering Board from “Back to the future”
movie. Not many people know this but 2014 is the year to which the main
character in the movie traveled to.
To great disappointment it was a hoax by the notorious FunnyOrDie team.
But
is everything in those movies and books just pure fiction? Or were the authors
just a few years off? We already went to the moon, cloned a sheep and seized
the power of atom. Yet we still yearn for some of the tools promised in those
forecasts.
I
just can’t wait for the technology from the movie “Ender's Game”. The main character, called Ender
played with so called “Mind Game” which visualized on the
screen our thoughts and in doing so created the world of the game. As I love
arts that would be my favorite must-have among futuristic gadgets.
Questions:
What is your opinion on the topic? Do you have a favorite futuristic book or movie that you hope will be our true future? Maybe you have a dream gadget you already want to lay your hands on?
What is your opinion on the topic? Do you have a favorite futuristic book or movie that you hope will be our true future? Maybe you have a dream gadget you already want to lay your hands on?
Comments
If you ask me about my dream gadget I won't be very creative. To me it is teleport. I would like to be able to flit between places within a minute or two. Travels take too much time. Anyway, I'm not a specialist, but unfortunately I heard that it is not possible...
But who knows, with the imagination of the moviemakers we can expect more unimaginable in the future!
I read about the party that Stephen Hawking arranged. That's a cool story I hadn''t heard about. I personally am deeply interested in Stephen Hawking's fields of science and his books. Seems like the humanity will be annihilated before time travel is possible or maybe time is just a dimension that cannot change direction, and thus matter cannot exceed the speed of light. Which is too bad, since I'd like to see so many things from my past all over again. But since I couldn't see my older self doing that when I was a kid, it means I will never be able to do it.
To go back on topic, the thing I'd like the most from the movies of the future is a teleportation device. Mostly because I could save time and money on distant travels ;-)
Anyway, I read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philipp K. Dick and thought that this might be a quite realistic future. Especially with animals. It starts already, actually. That whichever animal you own, you show your social status. Very interesting.
With gagdets I stopped looking at those as a mark of a future, because we already make so many of them. But I watch films where they show a social whay of a future civilization. That is the most interesting way. And so "The book of Eli", "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", "Total recall".
I read "Enders Game" and it was a fantastic book. And I'am affraid to see a movie. But I hope, that something like that will never happen...
When I was younger I read all the books and watched all the movies of Harry Potter, so I think it is clear that I want to play quidditch :). Flying on the gryphon or drinking strange potions would be cool too :P.
Quickly need something for everyday flying =)
I remembered it as political propaganda of the world ruled by three things: community, sameness and stability.
2001: A Space Odyssey is one of my favorite sci-fi movies! I’ve seen a Czechoslovakian movie from the 60’s – Ikaria. I recommend this one to the fans of old science fiction.
I love watching movies, as well as reading old sci-fi books. There you can find great inventions predicted by the authors. We use some of the gadgets nowadays!
However, with regard to such devices like teleporter I think this kind of inventions will be doomed to fail. Quite recently researchers had proved that to teleport something from point A to point B we need to destroy their original matter and rebuild in 100% in destination place, and somehow I don’t like to be disintegrated to atoms and probably not survive.
Speaking generally, the human kind isn’t said the last word and I think with time todays fiction became reality and even after one thousand years man will be dreaming about something which are unavailable, however while for the next thousand years it probably become real.
The topic is very interesting. It is true that some what we call movie fiction will be our reality in next few years.
Do you have a favorite futuristic book or movie that you hope will be our true future?
Hmmm... thats a hard question. I think that intelligent robots would be something very useful. Robots which can not only think but also feel like humans. We could say robots that have soul. Or perhaps a hybrid half human and half robot.
It would be great if people invent medicine for death and all diseases. Would that not be great? Pill for ageing would be great too!
Maybe you have a dream gadget you already want to lay your hands on?
Definitely time machine. With that tool you can do so many good in the world. For example you could stop the plane to avoid the disaster. You could make yourself reach easily only by playing lottery!
Regarding the magick floating desk made by HUVr. Of Course it was a hoax ! :). But you have to say that many people will believe them. If you look carefully you will be able to see ropes and shadows of the equipment that lifts all the actors flying the boards.
The authors create something special and unpredictable for an average person as a special effect, next viewers like it and designers produce something similar. And in this way author’s imagination become something used in every day situation, so designers in fact don’t create something new, but only exchange author’s imagination into practice. I’m not saying that designers never create something new. They do a lot. For example, I’m really waiting for transparent tv designed by Michael Friebe that it will be able to become a marvelous piece of technology that will combine conventional LCD with the latest TOLED display technology. This will allow to create non-transparent / solid moving pictures with rich color reproduction and full contrast range from solid black to pristine white. http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7rhmi2m8D1rsftq9o1_500.jpg
I’m not a fan of sci-fi, futuristic movie or books. My last sci-fi film is “Inception” with DiCaprio, who has to implant the idea to someone’s mind. Impossible, maybe in future. Who knows ? I think that future can only be better and easier to life. I find my dream gadget in your article. It’s the HUVr board. What a pity youtube’s film was a hoax :)
I've seen this HUVr board's movie and i am soo disappointed, i would spend all my money on it.
or, of course u can buy pro version ^^'