8 Sci-Fi Technologies That Are No Longer Just Fiction
A submarine once seemed aboutas ridiculously impossible as an invisibility cloak seems today. But while technologies like the submarine, bomb, radar and tankonce captured the imagination of science fiction authors , science has brought them to the mainstream awareness. Researchers are continuing to catch up with imagination, and it’s only a matter of time before the technologies we still consider fiction meet a similar fate.
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Laser Guns
In science fiction novels, heat-rays , death rays, beam guns, blasters, phasers , blasters and plasma rifles usually serve a similar purpose to guns. Scientists at Intellectual VenturesLaboratory found a slightly morebenign purpose for one: zappingmosquitoes.
The gun locates the mosquitoes in flight, and then this happens .
The U.S. Navy also developed a giant laser weapon for a more traditional purpose.
[Photo: NAVSEA ]
Moving 3D Hologram
Scientists at the University of Arizona in Tuscon have developed a material that can record and display 3D images that refresh every two seconds. The resulting hologram, which you can check out in this video , isn't as smooth as its science-fiction counterpart, but the scientists are working to speed up the refresh rate to match that of movies.
"From day one, I thought about the hologram of Princess Leia and whether it can be brought out of science fiction," Nasser Peyghambarian, one of the teammembers who worked on the project, told Nature News .
IMB recently predicted that mobile phones would project 3D image of callers by 2015. Image courtesy of iStockphoto , melhi Levitation
It's been two years since researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Harvard University have accomplished levitation, though the power is reserved for the molecular level at the moment. Researchers suspended a tiny gold-plated sphere over a glass surface by relying on the tendency of certain combinations of molecules to repel each other.
The researchers saw more applications for their technologyin nanomechanics , the development of microscopic machinery, than they did for magic demonstrations, but one can't help but hope that larger floating objects are on the way.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto , scodonnell
Hoverboard
The flying skateboard-like vehicle used by characters in the Back to the Future films exists. French artist Nils Guadagnin finished creating it in 2010 for an exhibition appropriately named "Back to the Future."
Though the board hovers, alas, itdoes not fly. Nor does it supportweight in its levitated state.
Mind-Reading Machine Researchers at the University of Utah were able to translate brainsignals into words by implantingmicroelectrodes on top of the brain (the patient who volunteered for this experiment already had part of his skull removed to treat his epilepsy). Grids of the electrodes were placed over the speech centers of the brain and recorded brain signals the patient read a list of 10 words. When they compared any two brain signals, they wereable to distinguish brain signals for each word 76% to 90% of the time. The research may one day help scientists create a wireless device that converts thoughts of severely paralyzed people to computer speech.
Teleportation
While humans aren't zapping themselves to alternate locationsat will, in 2009 a team of scientists from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) at the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan managed to get two isolated atoms to exchange information at a significant distance (a little morethan three feet). The information, in a sense, had beenteleported .
The discovery has more implications for computers than it does for human transportation, but we're happy about it nonetheless. Image courtesy of iStockphoto , Georgethefourth Invisibility Cloak
Harry Potter might not be the only one with an invisibility cloak in the near future. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley made progress toward manipulating light waves in a way that renders objects invisible in 2008.German scientists created a cloak (albeit a tiny one) earlier this year.
Commercial Jetpacks
Comic strip character Buck Rogers helped popularize jetpacks starting in the 1920s. By the 1960s, a jetpack designedfor the military called the Bell Rocket Belt started appearing at public demonstrations. And soon, you'll be able to purchase your very own jetpack from Martin Aircraft Company .
Total views: 3 . View As Slideshow »
Laser Guns
In science fiction novels, heat-rays , death rays, beam guns, blasters, phasers , blasters and plasma rifles usually serve a similar purpose to guns. Scientists at Intellectual VenturesLaboratory found a slightly morebenign purpose for one: zappingmosquitoes.
The gun locates the mosquitoes in flight, and then this happens .
The U.S. Navy also developed a giant laser weapon for a more traditional purpose.
[Photo: NAVSEA ]
Moving 3D Hologram
Scientists at the University of Arizona in Tuscon have developed a material that can record and display 3D images that refresh every two seconds. The resulting hologram, which you can check out in this video , isn't as smooth as its science-fiction counterpart, but the scientists are working to speed up the refresh rate to match that of movies.
"From day one, I thought about the hologram of Princess Leia and whether it can be brought out of science fiction," Nasser Peyghambarian, one of the teammembers who worked on the project, told Nature News .
IMB recently predicted that mobile phones would project 3D image of callers by 2015. Image courtesy of iStockphoto , melhi Levitation
It's been two years since researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Harvard University have accomplished levitation, though the power is reserved for the molecular level at the moment. Researchers suspended a tiny gold-plated sphere over a glass surface by relying on the tendency of certain combinations of molecules to repel each other.
The researchers saw more applications for their technologyin nanomechanics , the development of microscopic machinery, than they did for magic demonstrations, but one can't help but hope that larger floating objects are on the way.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto , scodonnell
Hoverboard
The flying skateboard-like vehicle used by characters in the Back to the Future films exists. French artist Nils Guadagnin finished creating it in 2010 for an exhibition appropriately named "Back to the Future."
Though the board hovers, alas, itdoes not fly. Nor does it supportweight in its levitated state.
Mind-Reading Machine Researchers at the University of Utah were able to translate brainsignals into words by implantingmicroelectrodes on top of the brain (the patient who volunteered for this experiment already had part of his skull removed to treat his epilepsy). Grids of the electrodes were placed over the speech centers of the brain and recorded brain signals the patient read a list of 10 words. When they compared any two brain signals, they wereable to distinguish brain signals for each word 76% to 90% of the time. The research may one day help scientists create a wireless device that converts thoughts of severely paralyzed people to computer speech.
Teleportation
While humans aren't zapping themselves to alternate locationsat will, in 2009 a team of scientists from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) at the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan managed to get two isolated atoms to exchange information at a significant distance (a little morethan three feet). The information, in a sense, had beenteleported .
The discovery has more implications for computers than it does for human transportation, but we're happy about it nonetheless. Image courtesy of iStockphoto , Georgethefourth Invisibility Cloak
Harry Potter might not be the only one with an invisibility cloak in the near future. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley made progress toward manipulating light waves in a way that renders objects invisible in 2008.German scientists created a cloak (albeit a tiny one) earlier this year.
Commercial Jetpacks
Comic strip character Buck Rogers helped popularize jetpacks starting in the 1920s. By the 1960s, a jetpack designedfor the military called the Bell Rocket Belt started appearing at public demonstrations. And soon, you'll be able to purchase your very own jetpack from Martin Aircraft Company .
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