Happy Back To The Future Day

Happy Back to the Future day. Today is the expected date of Marty McFly to arrive and save his son from big trouble. There’s holograms, hoverboards and self-fitting shoes galore, but we don’t actually have those things… yet. What we do have are alternatives or close-to-realized stuff that BttF tried predicting.

For BttF day today, I’m going to continue the spirit of predicting the future with a list of fantasy stuff in my favorite TV shows or movies that - I hope - will be around in 30 years.

Medical Tricorders

Suffice to say, Star Trek has a plethora of great technological feats that we would love to have. One of them being the medical tricorder. A device able to scan any life-form and get a readout of their health and physiology. This miracle device saved many lives in the show, and would save many more if it were in our hands today. Currently there is a $10 million prize to the first person or group to make it happen.

Holodecks

Ok, I’m cheating here and going with another Star Trek device, but the lure of such a thing is just too powerful to resist. We already have devices coming out now, like the Oculus Rift, that is further immersing us. We also have more gimmicky, but working, ways of producing holograms like Tupac. I think we could start developing something close to a holodeck within 30 years.

Droids

Droids are incredible things that can help with just about anything. From farming to interpreters and even soldiers. Star Wars have them everywhere and don’t even think twice about them. Such a thing today would be a huge help to us today and we have many companies trying to make them real. I would personally love to have an R2 helping around.

Voice Commands

Many shows of the future have you talking to the computer, giving commands and getting replies. I love the idea of being able to talk to the computer while you work, mostly for repetitive tasks or just to let me walk about while the computer does the work. Microsoft is attempting to do this with Cortana and Xbox, but I’m not fully on board with something always listening and connected to someone else's server.

Wall TV Phones

Spaceballs is the best movie ever to me, and I always laugh when Skroob gets a call from Commanderette Zircon while using the bathroom. I’m not keen on having wall TV phones in the bathroom, but I like the idea of having screens all over the place you can make face-to-face calls from. We have face-time, so it can’t be more than a jump, skip, and a hop away from making it bigger and everywhere. 30 years sounds like enough time.

Flying Cars

What self respecting futurist list would be complete without flying cars? We’ve been adding this to the list forever now and refuse to remove it until it’s made. This item is like the Sasquatch of predictions. All we get are blurry images and vague promises that it’s real. Someday we’ll get them.