Science fiction has long served as a playground for exploring futuristic ideas, many of which eventually make their way into real-world technology. From classic shows and movies to imaginative novels, sci-fi has inspired some of the most iconic gadgets and innovations we use today. These stories pushed boundaries, inviting us to re-imagine what’s possible – and, often, inspiring engineers and inventors to turn imagination into reality.

Interestingly, some of today’s most advanced inventions and discoveries were already imagined in movies and shows released decades ago. Let’s look at some examples that will definitely make you go “Wow!” Will force you to say it.

A classic Star Trek communicator for smartphones

In the 1960s, Star Trek showcased the Portable Communicator – a compact, wireless device that allowed characters to talk across vast distances with a simple flip. At the time, it seemed like pure science fiction, but the communicator became an iconic symbol of future technology and directly inspired the engineers who later developed mobile phones. Interestingly, work on portable communication devices goes back even further, with various prototypes emerging in research laboratories, yet they never reached the market at the time. This fictional gadget laid the groundwork for real-world mobile communications, which eventually evolved into today’s smartphones.

Touchscreen interface and minority report

Tom Cruise in Minority Report

In minority Report (2002), characters manipulated data on transparent screens with fluid hand gestures, creating a futuristic vision of technology that felt both imaginative and attainable. This iconic depiction of a gesture-based touchscreen left a lasting impact, sparking ideas in technological innovation that led to the development of real-world touch and gesture controls. However, as early as 1983, HP released the HP-150 computer with a touchscreen that used an infrared grid, one of the first real-world examples of touch technology. These visionary interactions bring the genre closer to reality, making it possible to interact with devices in ways that were once just science fiction.

Video call from 2001: A Space Odyssey

In 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Stanley Kubrick demonstrated remarkably visionary technology, particularly in the design of the video call scene. The video call of the future, which appears vertically on a smooth, wall-mounted screen, resembles today’s smartphone “FaceTime” calls. Interestingly, the first two-way videophone demonstration took place much earlier, in 1930, between AT&T’s Bell Laboratories and their corporate headquarters in New York City.

HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey

While the HAL 9000 was an intimidating AI assistant, it laid the groundwork for our real-world AI like Siri and Alexa, though it was much friendlier in purpose. HAL showed how machines could assist, anticipate, and interact with humans – concepts that are central to AI today. Beyond just being helpful, this AI also introduced audiences to the concept of machines with emotions and complex interaction capabilities. HAL’s unsettling display of emotions hinted at how AI might one day simulate human-like behavior – an early nod to emotional AI, now an emerging field in technology

Self-Driving Cars and Knight Rider

Michael Knight and David Hasselhoff as KITT

In the 1980s TV series Knight Rider, audiences were introduced to KITT, a self-driving car with advanced artificial intelligence capable of interacting, analyzing situations, and even making autonomous decisions. However, self-driving technology research actually began earlier; For example, Carnegie Mellon University’s NavLab 1, developed in 1986, was one of the first self-driving prototypes. The concept, which was entirely hypothetical at the time, envisioned a vehicle that could safely drive itself, respond to voice commands, and assist its driver – features that sounded like distant science-fiction. Looks like. However, fast forward to today, companies like Tesla and Waymo are pushing the boundaries of autonomous driving, and turning this one futuristic idea into reality.

smart glasses from terminator

In terminator (1984), the cyborg protagonist’s iconic augmented vision demonstrated a world where digital information could be incorporated into the real world, giving audiences a glimpse of wearable technology. Decades before augmented reality (AR) became popular, computer scientist Ivan Sutherland developed the first AR system at Harvard in 1968, marking the beginning of augmented reality as a concept. This visionary concept has since inspired the development of smart glasses like Google Glass and Meta’s augmented reality eyeglasses. Just as the Terminator’s technology enabled real-time data displays, today’s smart glasses offer a similar experience, blurring the line between fantasy and reality by seamlessly integrating digital information into our daily lives .