30 years ago, a brave young man by the name of Marty McFly, blasted into 2015 at 88 miles per hour in a DeLorean time machine. While we’re waiting for Marty to arrive, we’ve taken a look at the predictions the Back to the Future II movie made in 1985. The film got a lot more right than many give it credit for!
Fashion
The biggest let down were the fashion predictions from the Back to the Future movies. We still tie our own shoelaces, our jackets don’t fit perfectly or dry at the touch of a button, but most importantly, we, with the exception of Miley Cyrus, don’t look like these guys…
Automatic Dog Walkers
Okay, so we’re calling this a near miss. While we still have to take our madras for a walk ourselves, we do have hoovers that roam the house while we’re away…not a bad try Back to the Future.
Technology
Of course, this had the biggest margins for error, but Back to the Future did immensely well.
Biometrics
What is biometrics? Most new phones are stuffed with biometrics. They’re basically fingerprint scanners or retina scanners. Yup, it’s really grown in the past few years, making its way onto the biggest handsets on the market, while generally becoming quite popular with users. Chances are most people use biometric scanning at least once a week to clock in at work, unlock a laptop or unlock their phone.
Phone Glasses
One of the gadget world’s biggest failed glories in recent years has been Google Glasses. Granted, everyone looks stupid in them and they don’t do a whole lot, Google Glasses were still quite a distance from their Back to the Future counterparts. Nonetheless, a fair attempt from the guys 30 years ago.
Hovercams
Back to the Future was frightfully accurate with this one. The past year has seen a massive surge in the use of Drones for capturing still and video images. At the recent Web Summit in Dublin, it was said that these will grow steadily in Ireland as US aerospace laws are extremely strict. Regardless, they are already being used to capture media and could replace traditional cameramen at some stage!
Hoverboard
This is the biggest wish of everyone. Sure we would all kill ourselves off a skateboard in two seconds, but we’d all be able to master a HOVERBOARD. Would you believe these things are closer to reality than you may think.
So yeah, hoverboards exist. While there is an abundance of fake videos, a real company going by the name Hendo has a real working Hoverboard. Hendo has just completed a successful Kickstarter campaign and enlisted Tony Hawk to demo their product. There are flaws, but I’m pretty sure this video would have blown some minds back in the eighties…
While we’re still a bit away from the Back to the Future Hoverboard, maybe this single wheel board will do for another while.
Truth be told, Back to the Future didn’t so much predict hoverboards. They more created a massive demand for the technology leading to companies researching the skateboard-like devices for plausibility.
Flying Cars
Miss. Unfortunately, cars are well and truly planted on the tarmac, with the exception of those weird aero-cars, but that’s another story!
So there you have it. Back to the Future II didn’t do too bad of a job predicting at all. Granted they didn’t predict mobile phones and thought fax would be the next big thing, but still, some of their predictions are a hell of a lot better than Keith Barry’s Christmas predictions.
