I always find it interesting to compare pop-culture's predictions of the future to the way things actually are. Most of the time I pretty much feel like David Byrne of the Talking Heads in their classic "Once In A Lifetime:" "You may ask yourself, how do I work this?/ You may ask yourself, where is that large automobile?/ You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house/ You may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife."
I think Byrne raised more questions about the future than he gave answers by getting all existential on us, which I guess you can do when you're just making your way through a song. It must be hard to be vague when depicting the future on film though, because there always seems to be one of two predictions: bleak (Blade Runner, I Am Legend, The Book of Eli) or happy (Back to the Future II, Meet the Robinsons). I, being an optimist, would like the future to be a lot more like what you see in Back to the Future II.
In the film, one of the greatest scenes is when they go to the year 2015. They show all these things that will be possible. Interesting thing is that some of these things have already been made possible.
10. Everything will be done by fingerprint (credit purchases, unlocking your house or car, etc) According to Back to the Future II, the days of losing various important things such as keys, credit cards, identification cards will be over. Instead, we will use the identification that we are born with: our fingerprints.
9. There will be holographs When I saw this in the film, I thought, "yeah that might be a bit far fetched." However, as of this year, I have been proven wrong no thanks to Tupac making his comeback via holograph at Coachella. From a technological standpoint, that was pretty awe-inspiring.
8. Shoes will self-lace In 2011, Nike released the Air Mag - an identical replica of the self-lacing shoe as seen in Back to the Future II. The shoe had a limited run of 1,500 and were sold on eBay to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. Though the shoes are an exact replica, they won't self-lace until 2015.
7. There will be self-hydrating food With self-hydrating food, you can say goodbye to the long hours over a hot stove. This would be perfect for someone who can't or won't cook. It's like microwaving food, though it keeps the flavor.
6. There will be even more inflation One great way to see the effects of inflation is to look at how much you had to pay for something during a certain time period. Let's say that, if you lived in the '80s, you had a night on the town that included dinner at Burger King and tickets to see Madonna on her "Virgin Tour." The meal may cost you around $1.50-$2. The tickets would cost around $15. Nowadays the tickets may cost you $150 to sit in the nosebleed section and the burger would cost you $6-$7.
