Many years ago they published a April fools joke promo for a new racing video game featuring famous fictional characters. The picture was Gandalf riding a weird medieval looking vehicle with fireworks strapped to it. I would have bought it
I just came across a fake promo for the new 2025 Ford electric vehicle with pictures saying it would look like a Model T. I’d buy it
Lightsabers.
And the hoverboards in Back to the Future 2
A holodeck.
That’s the end of civilization. No one would ever leave.
I want one.
Flying cars!
Have you seen how poorly drivers deal with two dimensions?
If you posted this question on Reddit there would be a hundred responses of “my imaginary girlfriend”.
It’s already been mentioned, but I’ll add another vote for the Holodeck. Of all the marvels the “Star Trek” future brought us, the holodeck would be the most fun. I could spend days there.
But as one of Larry Niven’s characters said: would you trust a busted autodoc?
A malprogrammed holodeck could trap you in hell forever…
There was a real documentary on Star Trek fans called Trekkies. It ended with short clips of actual Star Trek-themed stand up comedian routines. One guy was riffing on the idea of a fourteen-year-old hormonal Wesley Crusher locking himself in a holodeck for masturbatory purposes.
Captain Picard, “Wesley, perhaps you should see Counselor Troi.”
Wesley, “She’s in here with me.” (Suggesting that a holodeck version of her was part of his simulation.)
Both lightsabers and hoverboards would be incredibly dangerous in real life even if you make them work in ways that approximate how they are portrayed in movies. This is also true for most directed energy weapons (when someone is ‘disintegrated’ by a phaser on Star Trek, the physical matter is presumably reduced to an equivalent mass of superheated steam and particulates which should expand explosively, severely scalding anyone within the expanding volume until the temperature drops below boiling and covering everything in a greasy residue of proteins and sterols. Yick!
A true ‘flying car’ capable of being operated by a non-licensed pilot and landing in a parking lot or driveway would necessarily have to be highly automated, extremely reliable in G&C and collision avoidance, and have safety redundancies in every critical flight system. However, it would still be subjected to the vagaries of wind and weather the way a ground vehicle is not, and therefore limited in allowable operating environments. But the worst part is that a vehicle using conventional propulsion, i.e. accelerating a working fluid of air to achieve lift and horizontal motion would make a lot of noise just through the compression and motion of air, so the acoustic environment would be filled with nearly constant high-pitched whining that would drive people nuts and interfere with many pets and wild animals.
A technology I wish were real was actual quasi-opaque holographic projection and manipulation like that used in Iron Man; having worked on parametric CAD and data virualization in a simulated ‘virtual reality’ environments, both a ‘video cave’ and headset, these tools can be really useful for effective visualization of complex assemblies but are frustratingly limited in what they can actually do and tiring to use. Being able to just open up a display anywhere and create solid-looking images somehow projected into midair around you that can be accurately manipulated with hand gestures would be so fantastic, and unfortunately also physically impossible (without some refracting medium, at least), but I could use Tony Stark’s quip about how exhausting it is to used fixed displays while also explaining how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect to break through the Coulomb barrier to achieve heavy ion fusion.
Also, a mineral that could be processed into an alloy capable of absorbing mechanical vibrations and impacts and storing the energy for controlled use would be outstanding. I would certainly do more than use it to make a Frisbee.
Stranger
Another one from Star Trek: a tractor beam. Specifically a personal-sized one that can fetch small things (say up to a pound) to you from anywhere within sight.
Maybe it could have an optional upgrade to retrieve air tag-equipped items.
From Star Trek, I’ll take replicators - I know a lot of people like holodecks, but healthy food that mostly doesn’t taste healthy - sign me up. I know a few folks prefer the real deal, but if it’s good enough to mostly pass, I’m cool with it. Of course, cost depends on energy and it doesn’t do much for the high (in the US) cost items like housing, healthcare, and education.
And on the subject of energy - any of multiple free or extremely cheap methods of energy generation in various science fiction prgorams. Give me Mr. Fusion over the flying car.
Various youth-keeping/youth regaining sci-fi technologies. Sure, you have your dystopian ones, but you have good ones, too.
Molecular transport.
Time travel.
Be careful what you wish for:
Stranger
I already mentioned I wasn’t talking about dystopian and I specifically mentioned regaining youth, as well. Seriously annoying when I specifically state those versions exist but indicate I’m not talking about them (at least, that was what I intended to indicate) and someone has to crap on it by pulling them up.
Sure, there are negatives (particularly interested in the sex ratio if males and females die at the same rate as 25 year olds today), but there are so many potential positives, too. And that aspect doesn’t show up in the fake versions, anyway.
An affordable and safe fusion reactor.
And safe doesn’t have to be, “safe to keep in the bedroom”, but that would be better than “safe on an industrial basis”.
Hang tight, it’s only 30 years away.
Maybe someone else remembers a story “Pruzy’s Pot” by Theodore Sturgeon, about a mysterious toilet that may or may not be an organic being that obtains nourishment through a pliant suction tube, and the emotional connection formed between it and the narrator’s straight laced houseguest. (Because if I’m just imagining it I feel pretty icky)