It’s A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow
Twenty years ago, could you picture typing from your smartphone, checking your smart watch, turning your smart lights on and off from said smartphone, or speaking into your remote to find a TV show? Likely not. Technology has advanced so far, so fast, that it’s hard to keep up with everything. Luckily, we’ve made a list for you as a reminder of what we have today.
1. AI
This one should be pretty self-explanatory. From movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Iron Man, to Siri reaching our phones in 2011, AI has wormed its way into use for various job sectors, art, music, and video. For better or for worse, virtual helping hands are here to stay.
2. Robots
Robots have always been an area to explore, especially within movies. Whether it's a cutesy movie like Wall-E, exploring human emotions for machines like in Ex Machina, or watching an army of robots take over the world, humans love to talk about robots. Today, we have robots cleaning our homes, delivering our food, and taking land samples on our moon.
3. Smart Communities
Many movies have explored the idea of technology integrated with community— Total Recall, Minority Report, and Dream House are a few examples. Today, cities like Singapore, Helsinki, and Zurich are using smart cities for contactless payment, car charging networks, traffic sensor technology, and smart building systems for heating and cooling.
Lucent_Designs_dinoson20 on Pixabay
4. Drones
From package delivery, surveillance, light shows, and aerial photography, drones have made their way into our lives. These were first brought into our minds with movies like Back to the Future Part II, Syriana, Mobile Suit Gundam F91, and other films in the 80s and 90s.
5. Smart Glasses
We all made fun of Google Glass when it was first introduced, but smart glasses made a reappearance with Apple’s release of their Vision Pros. On top of having a more dynamic vision correction, smart glasses would aim to give you hands-free calling, navigation, fitness tracking, and more, through augmented reality.
6. Recognition Technology
Countless spy movies require characters to use eye, breath, voice, or fingerprint technology to gain access to a room. More commonly seen today, fingerprint and facial recognition software are the main ways most of us gain access to our laptops, tablets, and phones.
7. Smart Watches
Futurama, Inspector Gadget, James Bond, and Spy Kids all featured smart watches, which looked so cool as kids. Today, smart watches don’t have laser technology or remote detonation, but they do have device control, communication, payment, and personal health tracking.
8. Electric Cars
Electric cars are crucial in moving humanity towards a gas-free society. While most cities have options for charging ports, it can be more challenging if you’re traveling in a more rural area. Electric cars were introduced in film back in 1951 with the musical "Excuse My Dust.”
9. Cloning Technology
We’re not on Star Wars' level of cloning yet, but we have successfully cloned sheep, frogs, cattle, ferrets, mice, and monkeys. Hopefully, we’ll use this technology for good and reintroduce endangered animals back into the world, instead of pulling a certain type of DNA out of fossilized amber.
10. Smart Lighting
As kids, the idea of clapping our hands to turn off the light was a novelty. Today, we just have to say “Hey Google,” or “Hey Alexa.” Smart lighting is so normal at this point that entire homes are being built with this technology. Now, if only they could code in a clapping option…
Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash
11. Virtual Reality
Virtual reality gained traction in the 1992 film The Lawnmower Man, but made appearances in movies like Tron and Brainstorm a decade earlier. Today, VR is widely used in video game technology. However, it’s slowly making its way into the professional world, as it becomes available for training, design, and operational purposes.
Jessica Lewis 🦋 thepaintedsquare on Unsplash
12. Driverless Cars
Driverless cars aren’t quite at the level of sophistication we’ve seen in I, Robot or Knight Rider, but they have started making an appearance on our roads. Designed with productivity and safety in mind, driverless cars face a plethora of issues, such as hacking, complex road situations, and certain ethical dilemmas.
13. Smartphones
Smartphones are arguably the most common piece of technology we have today. IBM introduced the first smartphone, the Simon Personal Communicator, in 1994. However, the SPC had a one-hour battery life and required a stylus to use. It’s still been less than 20 years since Apple announced its very first iPhone, and look where we are today.
Christian Wiediger on Unsplash
14. Virtual Worlds
Virtual worlds are a fun way to connect with friends and create something from your imagination. While they still exist today through Roblox, Minecraft, or World of Warcraft, virtual worlds exploded in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Webkinz, Club Penguin, Fantage, Habbo Hotel, IMVU, Poptropica, and Moshi Monsters dominated the internet for nearly a decade.
15. Real-time translation technology
Thanks to AI, real-time translation tech is getting better every day. Google even offers an option to point your camera at something written in another language, and it is translated into what you see. This technology will be your ultimate travel buddy.
16. Mass Surveillance
We’re not quite at the levels of 1984 or Futurama, but mass surveillance does exist, particularly in cities. CCTV statistics show that China has 494 cameras per 1,000 people, nearly 50%. These high surveillance rates exist in cities like Sydney, Rio, Toronto, Seoul, Paris, New York, and Cairo, to name a few.
17. Wireless headphones
No longer are we spending our time untangling earbuds to listen to Mayday Parade’s newest album. Headphones have come a long way in the last 20 years, and Bluetooth headphones are the norm for everyday use.
18. Stealth Tech
You might be thinking of stealth in the form of massive government operations, but stealth technology exists in your home. If you have a fire alarm system, security system, or a Ring doorbell, you’ve incorporated stealth tech into your day-to-day life.
19. Jetpacks
Okay, maybe we don’t have jetpacks in the way James Bond does, but water jetpacks are used enough that we figured it fit well on this list. Water jetpacks can take a person up to 45 feet in the air, and there are countless funny videos of what it looks like when someone comes crashing down.
20. 4D Movies
4D films have existed in amusement parks and tourist traps since the 1980s, with the creation of Six Flags’ Sensorium in Baltimore. Today, most movie theatres offer 4D options for certain films, where you’ll be met with a very jittery chair, wind on the back of your neck, water in your face, and even a smell or two to tie it all together.
