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2015 Back To The Future Checklist


Necro

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It's only four years away now, so lets turn on Huey Lewis & The News and run down the list of stuff from the 2015 scenes in the second movie and see if we're coming close.

 

Adjustable bat - Check. Currently only limited to riot police though.

 

Autoadjusting and autodrying jacket - Not yet

 

Automatic dog-walker - Like many household robots, in-development.

 

Automated Texaco service station - It may well have been made up, but I'm pretty sure I read last year that Shell was experimenting with these.

 

Barcode license plate - No, though I don't get why, as I feel like it'd make things easier, and really isn't that much difference in manufacture.

 

Binocular card - You hold them at a different angle, but yes.

 

Bionics - Not like in the movies, but I think those, as well as basic bionic suits, are in-development in Japan(Whether the disasters there have crushed these industries or, in an effort to get into the reactors, spurred them on, I'm unsure). At the moment though, we do have some.

 

Compu-Fax - Not exactly, but the new media with things like twitter and such have basically become a living computer version of this.

 

Cosmetic factory - Sort of. There's an industry for what this did in the movies, but it doesn't work anywhere near as well, if at all, in real-life.

 

Dehydrated pizza - I wish.

 

Dust-repellent paper - I think so.

 

Flying circuits - They better be making it.

 

Garden Center/Fruit dispenser - I'm pretty sure some more modern houses have something like this.

 

Holobillboard - No, but that's kind of dangerous, so no objections.

 

Holofilms like Jaws 19 - One-upped by the method of 3D used in some recent movies.

 

Hoverboards like the Mattel hoverboard, Pit Bull hoverboard, and No Tech hoverboard - See flying circuits above.

 

Hovercam - No flying circuits, so no.

 

Hover conversion - See the above.

 

Hydrator - Same as dehydrated pizza.

 

Mr. Fusion - Wouldn't that be wonderful?

 

Multi-channel video screen and the 300-plus channel universe - Absolutely.

 

Neon curbing - It would be awesome, but impractical and expensive, so no.

 

Ortho-lev - I wish, less for myself, and more for relatives.

 

Video telephone - Yes.

 

Video glasses/Video telephone glasses - Kind of. We're still working on linking them up with phones and TV, but as dangerous as it seems, there were hundred-dollar glasses that did this for an iPod video, and I think are still in production.

 

Portable thumb unit - I think they used to make dedicated units. Now a mix of an app and an accessory let an iPhone do it.

 

Powerlacing shoes - Once more, I wish.

 

Rejuvenation clinic - I believe with a mix of cosmetic surgery and organ printing it's becoming plausible, but not yet.

 

Tranquilization - Yes, though tasers are more common than the in-film chemicals.

 

Scene screen, featuring The Scenery Channel - Yes.

 

Video simulacrum - Not exactly as in the films, but in a lot of ways being worked on.

 

Skyway - It'd be awesome, but no.

 

Slamball - Again, awesome, but we don't have antigravity yet, so no.

 

Sleeping device - Yes, though making someone utterly disoriented for a few seconds is a more popular design.

 

Soda bottles with built-in straws - I think some companies may have tried this in the last decade, with poor results.

 

Thumb pad - Yes.

 

Weather service/Controlled and scheduled weather - We don't have it yet. Or do we?!

 

So out of 37 things, with three-five more years for development, we have 13 we've done, 16 we haven't, 3 that exist, but nothing like they did in the movies, and 5 that're being developed. Overall, given it was optimistic enough to have flying cars, hoverboards, robots, bionic implants and all that commonplace, I think we're doing decent. I want to see that 13 beat that 16 with the time we've got left though.

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I believe the reason we have licence plates instead of barcodes is so that anyone, not just a machine, can read them. If a car nearly hits you, you can tell the police which one if you catch its licence plate. If you nearly get hit by a car with a barcode and the police ask you to identify it you're going to go "Ummmm" because you can't tell (or describe) the difference between bar codes

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