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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Charles Arthur

After Kinect/Minority Report, what other technologies did films forecast?

Tom Cruise and Colin Farrell in Minority Report
Tom Cruise uses gestures to manipulate data in Minority Report

Accept for a moment that Microsoft's new Kinect (what used to be known as Project Natal, a name we much preferred) is the idea of Minority Report's gesture interface come true. You know, wave your arms about and things get done (even if you do have to pass people USB sticks from across the room.)

Now for our next question: what other technologies forecast in other films have come to reality? Anything from Blade Runner? Or from Total Recall? Or from The Matrix (err.. the phones were the very latest Motorolas, so don't say "the phones")?

Yes, this is a bit similar to "the best technology moments in film", but slightly different: we're asking about films which predicted some sort of technology, and where that technology has then - voila! - turned up in real life.

(And yes we know too about all the "pre-crime" stuff that's been happening which also mirrors Minority Report. But let's have your input from the other films..)

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