# Your favourite sci-fi stuff that came true **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 14, 2003, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292 "2003-03-14T08:58:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ender\_Will](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Ender\_Will](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ender_Will)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2003, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/21 "2003-03-15T19:44:59Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m always amazed at stuff in Heinlein’s books. I remember in one book (I think it was the Door Into Summer) a character uses a debit card. In _Space Cadet_ (not his best work, but entertaining), a couple of the characters have what are basically cell phones, and ride on “slidewalks”-those moving walkway deals you find in airports. IIRC, there is some mention of the cell phone ettiquette on a plane or some such. Heinlein was spot-on with some of his predictions, but I’m still waiting for women to reach his ideal… ---
**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/22 "2003-03-16T00:44:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Seven \* > \*\*If I can get a movie compressed to fit onto a memory stick, I could view it on my PDA. > > I have a couple of short clips on my PDA right now. 🙂 \*\* Doing it as we speak, about to lauch a thread dedicated to it in MPSISMS momenterily. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/23 "2003-03-16T02:11:29Z")
The Chunnel fullfilled a very old sci-fi prediction. I’m not holding my breath for a trans-Atlantic tunnel though. 😉 Solid-state lighting is finally here. “Smart” weapons such as the 20mm grenade launcher that can detonate at proximity or an adjustable range. Lasik eye surgery to eliminate corrective lenses. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/24 "2003-03-16T02:18:02Z")
There’s also the cloned animals and the artificial heart. Both came true, at least experimentally. ---
**Author:** ![Daniel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Daniel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daniel)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/25 "2003-03-16T02:27:57Z")
“Hoverboards don’t work on water . . . unless you have POWER!” One thing that’s always predicted but never catches on in real life is the video-phone. They’re in stores right now, but who buys them? The Webcam only seems to do this in TV commercials that want to prove it can be done. David Foster Wallace devoted a few pages to this in _Infinite Jest_, predicting that once people started using video phones, they’d forget about the “video” aspect and start answering it half-dressed, or else start absent-mindedly picking their noses during conversations. Basically they wouldn’t be able to get over their old non-video-phone habits. Soon people would replace the video with a still image of themselves, and then instead of themselves, they’d have pictures of models and celebrities, kind of like the cartoon avatars people use in Instant Messaging nowadays. So the video aspect would be negated due to vanity. While the world didn’t go through the whole rude awakening it did in _Infinite Jest_, I kind of admire the idea of predicting why a specific technology _won’t_ come around. ---
**Author:** ![Freyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freyr/32/5763_2.png) [@Freyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freyr)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/26 "2003-03-16T02:55:33Z")
Voice recognition software. What I’m really waiting for is its perfection, so that it can hear and then transcribe whatever’s being feed into it. This is a dream come true for anthropologists! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/27 "2003-03-16T05:14:22Z")
When I saw **2001** as a kid in 1968, I remember being totally amazed that one day you might be able to play chess against a computer. I bought my first computer chess program less than fifteen years later. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Harmonix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonix)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/28 "2003-03-16T06:28:15Z")
hey flying car geeks! [link!](http://www.moller.com/) who knows, one day Moller might actually get it to production. ---
**Author:** ![Lazlo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lazlo/32/9678_2.png) [@Lazlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazlo)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/29 "2003-03-16T15:17:38Z")
That’s easy. The transporter. I love being able to show up at work instantly from 500 miles away. Oh shit. Um… Don’t tell anyone I mentioned this… ---
**Author:** ![No-so-cratic-as-all-that](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@No-so-cratic-as-all-that](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No-so-cratic-as-all-that)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/30 "2003-03-16T15:52:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by KarlGauss \* > \*\*When I saw **2001** as a kid in 1968, I remember being totally amazed that one day you might be able to play chess against a computer. > > I bought my first computer chess program less than fifteen years later. \*\* I saw **2001** when it came out, and played chess against a computer the next year. 🆒 Sorry, TungTwister – Always Coming Home was published in 1987. Email _as we know it today_ had been here for at least five years. Heck, even _I_ had email for over five years at that point, and I didn’t feel like a pioneer at the time. My nominees: speech recognition (it was _hard_) and the maglev train. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/31 "2003-03-16T16:33:50Z")
Stealth Planes. I can’t recall how many sci fi shows I saw where someone was flying a plane and said, “They won’t pick us up on radar”. Then I found out about the F-117 and B-2. Those planes look friggin AWESOME. Giant boomerang-shaped planes doing surgical strikes (relatively) undetected). To a lesser degree, webcams. It seemed pretty neat that you could talk with somebody and see them on a screen at the same time. I remember seeing video phones and thinking how cool it will be when they replace normal phones, but I guess that concept never took off. ---
**Author:** ![alibey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@alibey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alibey)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/32 "2003-03-16T17:33:53Z")
Which Sci-Fi story predicted digital watches? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/33 "2003-03-16T18:35:00Z")
Well, it’s not a favorite thing, but I’ve read a lot of stories abuot how a right-wing fascist steals a Presidential election and then sets up a state security apparatus and takes over the media, using war and/or the threat of war to keep gullible folks in line and distract them from the effects his bad policies have on the economy. And that one DEFINITELY came true since 2000. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2003, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/34 "2003-03-16T19:29:15Z")
Handheld lasers! Never, when I was a little kid did I ever think that one day you’d be able to buy a small, handheld laser at a gas station. Too bad you can’t vaporize folks with 'em. ---
**Author:** ![TwungTister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TwungTister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwungTister)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2003, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/35 "2003-03-18T20:51:06Z")
For Not-so-cratic…Hm. I thought _Always Coming Home_ was published in 1981. It may have been used in 1987 but we didn’t have it (don’t know when my dad started at work.) In 1995 it seemed that the university was just beginning to pick it up or beginning to encourage it. The room was full of monitors with yellow letters and “Control-Letter Key” commands for email. A few monitors with Netscape Navigator for the internet OR email. So it seemed like it was just beginning to pick up in 1990 onward. And the labs expanded and people brought one into their dorm rooms, blah blah blah. ---
**Author:** ![occ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8c91f0/32.png) [@occ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/occ)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2003, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/36 "2003-03-19T00:52:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Daniel \* > [BOne thing that’s always predicted but never catches on in real life is the video-phone. They’re in stores right now, but who buys them? The Webcam only seems to do this in TV commercials that want to prove it can be done. Weren’t there videophone prototypes around in the 50s or early 60s? To be honest, this doesn’t seem like a particularly necessary thing, and consumer indifference seems to drive that home. Proponents of such devices seem to think that because it can be done, it’ll sell; that anything with audio involved necessarily must evolve to include video. Bleah, a videophone wouldn’t really be all that useful, unless you were using it for por-no-co-logical purposes, in which case – why not buy a $30.00 webcam instead? Sprint’s trying this with their phone-digicam combo device. I don’t believe they’re selling well. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2003, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292/37 "2003-03-19T01:25:07Z")
> [@](#): > > Weren’t there videophone prototypes around in the 50s or early 60s? To be honest, this doesn’t seem like a particularly necessary thing, and consumer indifference seems to drive that home. There were demo picture phones back then. They had a mock-up picture phone at the 1964-65 World’s Fair. It’s not consumer indifference, though – it’s cost and bandwidth. No way were we going to have universal picture phone service in the 1950s. We’re getting much closer now, with webcams and those stupid picture-sending cell phones. _Now_ I suspect that consumer attitudes will rule what we get (see if you can guess what mine is). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-sci-fi-stuff-that-came-true/161292.md?page=1)