October 20, 2011, 8:08 AM — Where are all those futuristic tech toys that were supposed to be gracing our lives by now?
Sure, we've got gadgets and gizmos a-plenty; we've got whozits and whatzits galore. But we still need time-traveling DeLoreans, damn it, and shoes that lace themselves up without all that finger-draining effort.
[ Jetpacks, Androids, and the Future That Never Came ]
To be fair, Nike did release those self-lacing sneakers from Back to the Future. The only problem: They were missing the self-lacing capability. The shoes had the look and lights of Marty McFly's famous kicks, but they lacked the coolest feature of all.
Still, their presence was enough to get me thinking about all the awesome movie gadgets I'd like to have in my life. Some of them are pure fantasy; others could conceivably exist one day. All of them, though, have been the subject of countless geek dreams -- and all of them would be amazing to own.
So fasten your seatbelts, friends, and get ready to revisit some of the greatest movie gadgets of all time. Oh, and it probably goes without saying -- but where we're going, we don't need roads.
1. The Hover Board (Back to the Future Part II)
Forget the shoes: The Back to the Future gadget we really need is the high-flying transportation tool Marty McFly loved to ride. Not the DeLorean, mind you (though I'll take one of those, too), but rather, the hoverboard.
The hoverboard was the futuristic version of the skateboard Marty discovered while visiting the year 2015 in the second film of the series. Its defining characteristic -- duh -- was that it hovered without the need for wheels.
For a while, folks thought the hoverboard actually was real. Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis fueled the rumors, publicly claiming that the floating wonder had been around for years and was withheld only due to safety concerns from parental groups.
Unfortunately, ol' Bobby Bob was just joking, and the hoverboard is not yet here. An artist named Nils Guadagnin made a replica of one last year, but alas, it was not able to support a human rider.
Let us not release this dream. One day, the hoverboard will hover into our lives -- and when it does, just remember: You can't ride it over water.
2. The Invisibility Cloak (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)
We may be a bunch of muggles -- well, some of us may be, anyway -- but that doesn't mean we aren't entitled to certain magical pleasures. And yes, I'm talking about real magic here, not the heavily air-quoted kind that Apple sells.
One of the coolest creations to come out of the Harry Potter series is undoubtedly the invisibility cloak. First seen in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the cloak lets Harry creep through any room without being seen. Just imagine the things you could do with that device (and keep your mind out of the gutter, pal).
Researchers have been talking about a real-world version of the cloak for years now. From the looks of it, though, they may need to learn the Accio spell: Thus far, the cloak has yet to actually apparate into our lives.
