6 classic sci-fi gadgets that really exist [part 2]

Yesterday there was this. Now, here are six more insanely cool sci-fi gadgets either ready to purchase, or available real soon.

Star Trek — flip communicator pre-runner to flip phones and mobile phone

Star Trek is the scary precursor to most sci-fi technologies we currently employ in the real world, except for teleportation and warp speed. What we’re interested in is the flip-style Communicator used in the 23^rd– century world of the Federation.

From the first appearance of the communicator in 1964 until today, flip phones are still the default mobile phone of film and TV. It must have something to do with the dramatic appeal of slamming a flip-phone closed. Walter White tapping “end call” furiously on Breaking Bad doesn’t have the same appeal. Flip phones still have some appeal, with companies like Fujistu having launched the F-Series, a flip-phone with questionable uses.

Someone even reviewed the replica of it. Very endearing.

The inventor of the mobile phone, Dr. Martin Cooper even credited the Communicator for his inspiration. The Communicator though, even the 1960s version, has technology hundreds of years in the making. It’s capable of subspace communication and somehow bypasses standard telecommunication methods to relay its signal. Skype Intergalactic?

The communicator evolved to a Bluetooth style device in the nineties when Star Trek: The Next Generation launched. With one product, the inspiration for Bluetooth headsets began to develop.

Flip phones and Bluetooth communication aren’t the only technologies inspired by Star Trek. Deep Space 9, the most commercially successful Star Trek, used tablets that seemed chunkier and less accessible than even the cheapest Android tablet. Someone should have let chief Miles O’Brien know. Today we have the iPad Mini and the Nexus 7, two of the best and most portable tablets currently available.

Blade runner — the photo editing computer with insane detail(gigapixel images)

CSI lied to you. You can’t zoom into an image until you can count the hairs on their eyebrows. And you can’t flip a 2D image in a 3D space to find the killer hiding just out of sight behind a Taco Bell. This fictional tool is called the “Esper photo analysis machine” and it does magnificent things. Point of fact, some of these made-up photo edits can be done in real life.

Enter the Gigapixel, an image composed of one-billion pixels. Companies are already using 2 Gigapixel scans for wide-area surveillance, as detailed by this article. So the technology, while expensive, is a viable option for those companies with enough cash (or Bitcoins) in the bank.

There’s also this frankly insane 50-Gigapixel camera that looks like something out of The Fly. 50-Gigapixel is “the upper limit” apparently, and with a consumer Gigapixel camera only available from 2020 or later; we’ll have to stick with zooming into high-def images on PaintShop for kicks.

As for depth manipulation, we have Lytro, a camera that can change the focus of an image post-upload. Plus, Lytro has just introduced Perspective Shift — the perspective of the image can be manipulated after the fact. Frankly amazing, and it makes me eat my earlier words.

2001 A space odyssey — HAL, Jarvis — Iron Man (Siri)

Are voice-controlled assistants as capable as the malicious killer AI HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey? Not quite, but Google Voice gets it right most of the time. Here’s an application better and more capable than Siri, and one that is neatly implanted into the total life-control app called Google Now.

A few years back, this ingenious fellow invented his own Jarvis, the Tony Stark’s virtual butler in Iron Man. It talks back, it’s an alarm clock, it even has a conversation with its creator.

HAL loses it

What we’re really looking for is a competent AI, and there aren’t too many of those going around. Wired even says that the first computer to pass the Turning test (a proving ground for computer AIs) will only exist in 2030.

Whatever the future of AI is, it won’t be local. Sim City, a game that caused more trouble than it was worth, uses a simple AI system hosted on EA’s servers. The simulation engine, named GlassBox is said to be “enormously sophisticated” with every Sim (in-game citizens) going about its daily business depending on virtual state of mind.  Still, the closest we’ll get to a conversation is when we moan at Siri for waking us up at the wrong time.

Holograms (Star Trek)

There are some exciting prospects here, and we can mostly thank the late Tupac for advancing holographic technology.

Bending light, touching solid shapes rendered and projected by a computer was once thought to be in the realm of impossibility,but then I wouldn’t be writing about it in a “Sci-fi gadgets that now exist” story.

The answer for now is a nanoscale pixel contained within carbon nanotubes. So instead of a hologram being flat, we’ll be able to walk around it and view the object in a realistic setting. Cambridge University is supposedly paving the way for holographic biosensors. The holograms will be extremely high-def but for now the process is expensive and restricted to a lab setting.

And then there’s this, the educational use of Holograms, check this out:

This is the natural evolution of holograms. Reactive AI and adaptive animations that responds to users with pinpoint accuracy. Not as fascinating as Tupac, but infinitely more educational.

Universal translator (Star Trek, Hitchhikers Guide and Doctor Who)

It’s Google to the rescue once again. Google Translate performs over a billion translations per day now, is ready to rock in over 65 languages, is available on iOS and Android (it’s natural home) and this makes it the most useful and portable universal translator there is. It even works offline. Sometimes. It’ll even translate a document with a quick drag-and-drop.

So that’s one universal translator ticked off. Not so fast. While it’s all good fun to whip out a smartphone for your translation needs, it’s translated speech that’ll take the gold prize. This is where Google Glass, the wearable PC comes into play. Instead of typing in the text, the voice is recorded in real time, relayed through the Google’s speech capture software and turned into your home tongue. The technology is ready; all we need now are the tools to tie it together. Google Glass will be available in 2014.

Exoskeletons (Ironman, Starship Troopers, Aliens, Avatar)

Exoskeletons, machines with a squishy human inside are available right now, if you’re a multi-millionaire. If not, then read all about it here.

The thought process behind exoskeletons assistance: helping spinal cord injury patients to walk again, protecting soldiers on the frontline and ensuring that factory workers can become the machines they used to wield. Let’s talk military use first. Lockheed Martin, one of the worlds largest weapon makers, has created the HULC.

See how easily he holds this light machinegun? Exoskeletons, baby

The HULC is one of the more feasible wearable robots on offer and lets the user carry up to 100kg. Lockheed is also working on MANTIS, an exoskeleton aimed at construction workers. MANTIS has multiple mechanical extensions for each arm and is said to increase worker productivity by thirty percent. But as this article so rightly states, what about the immense power consumption? Most, if not all, exoskeletons are battery-powered, with the biggest ones requiring constant cabled power.

The video is old, but good 

That was five years ago. This is the tech of today assisting the disabled to walk again. Without the type of battery issues that current exoskeletons are plagued with, the options are limitless. The company to watch out for is Ekso, which will most likely create the first off-the-shelf exoskeleton for the disabled.