Barely a week goes by without some tech breakthrough our gadget revelation promising to take the world by storm in some small or medium fashion, but although the delights of, say, driverless cars, 3D printing and virtual reality aren’t to be scoffed at, they’re still not quite the gadgets and gizmos we were promised by decades of science fiction.
Believe it or not some of the real holy grails of technology are actually getting closer and closer to becoming reality. Here’s a little roundup of gadgets to watch out for in a future that’s closer than you might think.
Hoverboards
And no we don’t mean the falsely named ones with wheels. There are now actual, living, breathing hoverboards, which are smashing speed records as we speak. The owner of the Flyboard Air hoverboard, Franky Zapata, flew for over 2km and clocked a top speed of 93 mph in the process. See some footage of Zapata on his crazy contraption below.
Lasers (& Laser Defence)
So, unbeknownst to most members of the public, the US already has real laser weapons in the field, some of which are aboard the wonderfully named USS Ponce – in fact so many, that China are already developing their own tactics against them, involving huge, artificial smoke screens.
Teleportation Devices
While we may be a little way away from beaming up from the USS Enterprise, last month, scientists at the University of Jena have figured out how to transport elementary particles from one location to another using lasers. Now that is cool.
Invisibility Cloaks
Now this one seems particularly unlikely, how on Earth can scientists have an invisibility cloak in the making? Well, this would be more for radar invisibility than optical camouflage, but with the potential for the latter should the idea be refined. One to, ahem, look out for. I’ll get my coat.