Only last week I was marvelling at being a part of history, watching tech developments come to fruition (driverless cars are becoming a reality with trials starting in the UK – see my other blog post). After blogging about being living history, I was sitting happily in a warm glow of contentment and pride in the tech world I get to live in, when I found myself asking: What else is happening that is making history? And, maybe we are actually in the future?
I did a little hunting and I came across an article on hoverboards … Seriously, hoverboards, you know the ones from Back to the Future 2. Anyone in their twenties will have to Google this!
For now, take it from me, when I was young this movie was cutting edge and seriously awesome. And no, this has nothing to so with the fact Michael J. Fox was really rather cute.
In the movie they suggested tech advances that were ‘out of this world’. Think wireless computer games, 3D movies, video conferencing, wall-mounted widescreen TVs … These were impossible dreams. Remember back then (in the olden days) we were in the Dark Ages of Tube Television – in fact, black and white TV licences were still an option. We had wired telephones, cassette tapes and just coming onto the market was the video tape, yes video tapes were cutting edge.
Yet here we are, in my lifetime, and these radical, out-there, impossible dreams of crazy creative minds are becoming a reality. TVs are flat, they are on the wall, we can video conference on our phones, on our mobile phones – talking of phones, we have cameras in our phone, cameras with no film. It is amazing. It is awesome.
All that said, I can see a natural evolution / need to get from HUGE space stealing TVs, to sleek, wall-mounted ones. From wired phones to wireless ones, and on to mobile phone. From film cameras to digital cameras, from videotapes to digital recorders. What I cannot see is the evolution of the hoverboard.
There is a skateboard in there somewhere for sure but really hoverboards are just for the love of tech. There is no driving force / pressing need to take a functional skateboard powered by a human able to go where you want when you want and evolve it into a hoverboard powered by a battery, limited in use by time and distance.
The only reason I can see it, is that we saw it as a challenge – if we can imagine a hoverboard, then we must be able to create it. And for that reason alone I love it. In fact for that reason alone I love tech.
The new tech savvy way of raising startup costs is Kickstarter – so it is of no surprise that you can invest into a Hoverboard Startup.
So, I am now pondering what have we imagined so far in 2015 that will be a reality in say, 2050?