The 'Back to the Future' inventions that came true

Marty McFly arrived on October 21, 2015 at 16.29 p.m. to the future. Did the predictions come out right?

Aero skid

Twenty-six years after the premiere of the mythical "Back to the Future 2", the date on which Doc Brown and Marty McFly traveled to the future has served to make a curious comparison of those inventions that did become reality. One of the mythical devices of the film is the Hover Board or Aeropatín. The flying skateboard has been the focus of multiple false advertisements but.... although in the experimental phase, Lexus is working on a device that controls movement in a way very similar to the film's skateboard: through nitrogen-cooled superconductors to levitate thanks to magnetism.

3D Cinema

The director of the film, Robert Zemeckis introduced all kinds of technologies and gadgets that could exist in the future. Apart from the well-known airport, another of them was the 3D cinema. In "Back to the Future 2", we see McFly in a scene surprised after seeing images of the presentation of the latest film of "Jaws" in Holomax, very very real holograms. Nowadays, three-dimensional cinema is commonplace in any cinema on the planet, although we still need glasses to see it.

Nike Air Mag

In the "Back to the Future" film, McFly gets Nike Air Mag shoes that fit on their own without the need to bend down. The sports shoe company has decided to launch a limited edition at a somewhat prohibitive price, with a self-adjusting system that does not require laces. McFly's slippers are therefore a reality.

Videoconferencing

Video calls or videoconferences appear in "Back to the Future 2" when, for example, the head of McFly fires you using this communication system. In both professional and personal environments, video calls are our daily bread. They have become a common activity in devices such as smartphones, tablets and computers.

Flying cars

The DeLorean is the emblem of "Back to the Future", a time travel machine with the particularity of being able to fly. Although they do not yet exist on the market, flying cars (which are converted from car to plane in a matter of seconds), for which there are already very promising prototypes.

Garbage as fuel

In "Back to the Future", the DeLorean was able to function perfectly thanks to the conversion of waste and other organic elements into fuel. Although not like in the film, the use of organic waste to transform it into energy (biogas) is a reality and it will be a matter of time before we can use vehicles to directly introduce the waste to them, as Doc does in this scene.

Biometric control systems

In the film and as we see in this scene, some policemen use Jennifer's fingerprint to open the door of her house. Today, biometric systems are mainly used for security in electronic gates such as a gymnasium or similar. Fingerprint recognition is already quite familiar and although it is not as widespread as it was at the time of the film, the road will take us to that point in a few years.

Drones

Although we didn't know them by that name in Back to the Future, radio-controlled and camera-controlled flying machines are a reality. In the film, a flying machine from the Usa Today newspaper takes aerial photos of an incident in which McFly is involved. Although their use by the media is fairly regulated and prohibited in some places, companies like Amazon use them daily for the delivery of packages and it will be a matter of time before their use becomes widespread. In fact, gadget market visionaries point out that the drone could be the star gift this Christmas.

Smart glasses

Many of the protagonists appear in the film wearing multi-purpose glasses, either to watch television programs or to communicate with others. These intelligent virtual reality glasses exist today. From Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR to HTC Vive, they are all very promising devices with total immersive experiences. And we must not forget Google Glass either.

Hands-free video games

In the society of the future presented in the film, video games did not need controllers or controllers to play them. Today, recognition systems like Microsoft's Kinect are already more than established in many people's homes.