Image via Complex Original
We live in a miraculous age, where sci-fi wonders are part of everyday life. You don’t think so? How about the fact that we carry tiny, absurdly powerful computers around in our pockets?
It was just a generation or two ago when computers took up entire buildings and were used only for doing math and launching missiles. Now we take our phones out when we want to know the name of a song, and we get irritated when they don't recognize it quickly enough while also giving us directions and letting us talk to someone 3,000 miles away.
That would have seemed like science fiction not too long ago—just like these 10 inventions might today. But these are some of the crazy new gadgets and ideas that might end up changing the world. This is the stuff that the future is made of.
The Star Wars Force Field
There are plenty of gadgets from Star Wars that we’d like to play around with (lightsabers anyone?), and force fields are definitely high up on that list. Enter Boeing, the aerospace and defense company voted “most likely to actually be working on stuff like force fields” in its graduating class.
This year, Boeing was granted a patent for a “method and system for shock wave attenuation via electromagnetic arc,” a defense mechanism that senses nearby explosions and generates an arc that dispels the blasts’ shock waves. This version isn’t powerful enough to defend against direct hits from rocket launchers or Death Stars, but it does seem like a step in an awesome direction.
The Hyperloop
Billionaire inventor and investor Elon Musk has the will and the means to make our sci-fi dreams become reality, and in addition to commercial space travel and electric cars, he’s turned his attention to mass transit here on Earth: the Hyperloop, “the world’s next breakthrough in transportation.”
Designed both for cargo and passenger transport, the Hyperloop comprises of a system of tubes like vacuum-sealed gun barrels and train cars that look like giant bullets. And that’s about how fast it will move, too, when the first test track goes up next year.
Flexible, Fast-Charging Batteries
Next to hyper-fast ground transportation, flexible batteries may seem trivial. But when the batteries that power our gadgets are freed from current technological restrictions, anything might be possible.
Here’s one example: Scientists at Stanford recently published an article about their work on a flexible aluminum-ion battery that looks like a pouch-flask you’d try to sneak into Coachella. But it can charge a phone in one minute, lasts 70 times longer than a traditional smartphone battery, and fits in any kind of gadget you can think of thanks to its malleable shape. Oh, and Elon Musk is working on this problem, too—naturally.
Self-Driving Cars
The auto industry always globs onto the latest trends, but here’s to hoping that self-driving cars are more than just a passing fancy. As much as we love steering anything that goes “vroom vroom,” cars that pilot themselves with minimal human input could change the world for the better in almost immeasurable ways.
Self-driving vehicles could mean the end of traffic, as well as car accidents and car-related deaths. Tons of car companies are working the kinks out as you read this, and with Delphi’s autonomous auto recently completing a coast-to-coast trip, this revolution might be at hand.
Virtual Personal Assistants
It may seem like a small thing to address your smartphone with a voice command or question directly rather than having to search for the answer or rifle through your digital contacts yourself. But virtual personal assistants on our phones are the biggest leap forward in consumer-facing artificial intelligence perhaps ever.
The systems are imperfect, but how smart will they be in five years? How about in a decade? It’s amazing that we live in a time when AI for everyday use is a legitimate area of investment and research for the biggest tech companies in the world, and they’re getting closer and closer to Her-level Scarlett Johansson-bots all the time.
The Windshield Force Field
If force-fields aren’t quite up for blocking missile attacks just yet, then they can at least block bugs from your windshield, right? That’s what British Formula One company McLaren is allegedly working on.
McLaren’s chief designer hinted recently at new windshield-wiping tech and reports flooded in saying the system involves ultrasound waves that create a force field around your car’s windshield. If that works out, just imagine where else tech like this could be used—how about ultrasound umbrellas that emit from your hat and keep the rain from messing up your hair?
Virtual Reality
Virtual reality has been science fiction fodder for decades, but we’re only now beginning to see VR that’s actually effective at tricking your brain into thinking that your body is somewhere it’s not. That may sound a little bit terrifying, but it’s the key to the virtual reality revolution kicked off by Oculus Rift: putting that headset on your face transports you somewhere else, and that palpable sense of immersion has implications far beyond mere video games.
There’s a reason why so many companies beyond Oculus are trying their hand at it and pushing VR in interesting directions. Just look at Microsoft's HoloLens, a pair of augmented reality smart glasses that display holograms over your view of the real world. Someday, virtual reality could be where we live for half our lives.
High-Beta Fusion Reactor
The fusion reactor is the holy grail of energy production, but no one’s been able to make it totally viable just yet. No one except aerospace company Lockheed Martin, which claimed last year to have developed a “high-beta fusion reactor” that would change the world.
Lockheed Martin hasn’t backed up its claim with any hard data, but that’s part of what makes this so crazy. If the company can really deliver a working fusion reactor small enough to fit on the back of a truck within the next five years like it says it can, our world might start to look a lot more like The Jetsons in no time.
Wireless Electricity
All the gadgets that we use connect to the Internet and to one another wirelessly, with technology like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and NFC. So why do we still have to plug them into the same archaic, two-pronged wall chargers that chimney sweeps were using to power their mustache twirlers with a century ago?
Companies like Energous and WiTricity are working on this problem, with the goal to power all the devices in your home without cords, charging mats, or anything else that requires actual, physical contact between your stuff and a power source. A single electricity transmitter could beam energy wirelessly to everything in your living room, from the lamps to the Xbox, and it sounds like this breakthrough is close to being realized.
3D Printers
We’re already seeing the ways in which 3D printers can change the world. They’ve been used to make crazy things, from race cars and guns to sex toys. But they’re capable of even more, and they’re getting more impressive all the time.
At the Consumer Electronics Show this year, for example, a company called XYZPrinting debuted a “3D food printer” that makes edible treats appear out of thin air—and it’s not the only one. Others are working on 3D printing prosthetic legs and hearts, and 3D-printing things out of metal. How long before we can see this technology print a spaceship in our living rooms?
Edible Food Wrappers
It’s not the most unbelievable invention, but for science to replicate nature so effectively that we can eat the containers that our food comes in would be a huge breakthrough. And that’s exactly what companies like WikiFoods—unfortunate name, but they seem legit—are working on.
WikiFoods’ edible wrapper, the WikiPearl, is made from natural food particles, and it can encompass foods ranging from cheese and yogurt to cocktails and soup. Think of it like an apple’s peel: it keeps the food inside fresh, and once you give it a rinse under running water you can take a bite out of the whole thing. The company envisions these sitting on store shelves and replacing plastic packaging, and who knows what the future will bring?