We Were Told There’d Be Flying Cars…
Click here to browse clips from this collection…
When we saw the future in 1989, in the movie Back To The Future 2, everyone had flying cars, kids had hoverboards, and yet the future somehow looked a lot like the 1980s. It’s always funny to look back on how we viewed the future, in the light of hindsight. We never quite get it right…but we’re often far from the mark either. It’ll be interesting to see how the future holds up to our expectations of it today.
IMAGE: YOUNG ASIAN WOMAN IN FUTURISTIC WEAR AND GREEN WIG TAKING SELFIE ON SMARTPHONE IN FLUORESCENT LIGHT
Somehow the future feels closer today than it ever has in the past. Today’s bleeding edge technology is so advanced -so incredible- that most of the sci-fi geniuses of the past struggled to even imagine what’s quickly becoming possible today. The exception, of course, is the one and only Philip K Dick, whose iconic catalog includes many stories you’ll recognize including Minority Report, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, The Adjustment Bureau, and Blade Runner.
PKD’s visions of the future continue to trend prophetic, with several of the plot devices in his dystopian stories seeming less impossibly futuristic with each passing year. US Robotics is producing robot dogs that could be early iterations of the smart spider drones used by the police in Minority Report. Biohacking, while on the extreme edge of science, is a very real thing that foreshadows the possibilities of Blade Runner-esque technologies.
IMAGE: ELECTRONICS WORKER HOLDING SILICON WAFER REFLECTED IN SCREEN IN CLEAN ROOM
Elon Musk’s NeuralLink is attempting to merge brain wetware and computer hardware to extend human capabilities into new realms. SpaceX is attempting to put humans on Mars. It’s a crazy, crazy time to be alive…
We may not have flying cars, hoverboards, or be able to “set phasers on stun” -but we’ve got an incredible array of fascinating new technologies on the bleeding edge of science that are equally as deserving of our wonder and awe.
IMAGE: AERIAL SHOT OF LARGE SCALE SOLAR POWER GENERATION
Finding a good stock photo (or clip) of the future is about as hard as it sounds…without the benefit of time travel technology. But, we do the best we can, gathering the imaginative creations of artists projecting the future into the present. And, we catalog a wealth of the current wonders of science and technology in stock photos and footage as soon as it enters the public consciousness.
The denizens of Back To The Future’s version of the future would be envious of the technology and conveniences behind the common utilities of today -from Fiverr to Google Maps to handheld VR; the future is now and it’s impressive.
Click here to view all the clips from the video above.
Click here to explore the gallery of images, The Future Is Bright.
