Have you ever watched a TV show or Film and said ?Man I wish I had that technology right now!?. Or maybe watching a movie from years ago and a new piece of tech is introduced and thought ?That?s in my car right now!?. Well one such event happened to me this week. I was watching BIG, yes the 1988 Tom Hanks movie, and it got to the point where Tom Hanks? character Josh Baskin is working for the toy company and they develop an electronic comic book reader. I thought ?HEYYYY I have that and its on my iPhone!?, I?m talking about the iverse media iPhone/iPod Touch comic book reader app. (http://www.iversecomics.com/ which also has an Android App as well as an iPhone/iPod Touch App).

http://www.therebreathersite.nl/Zuurstofrebreathers/Japan/Images%20Japan/EobaDSCN0535.jpg

This got me thinking about if there is any other tech in our lives, or could quite possibly be in our lives soon, that appeared on film. Here?s a few I came up with:

Dick Tracy Watch Radio ---> LG-GD910 3G Watch Phone

Now I guess I don?t have to explain that the movie ?Dick Tracy? (1990) is based on the comic strip  character of the same name. In this movie (and in the comic) Dick Tracy can keep in contact with his headquarters via a wrist radio. Is there technology that is available today that can match this? 

Earlier this year LGe technology unveiled the first market ready touch-mobile phone watch. This includes 3G capabilities and video calling (where available). It has a tempered glass finish and a high quality metal casing. More information can be found here (http://www.lge.com/about/press_release/detail/21062.jhtml) 

Iron Man 

•   Artificial heart ---> CardioWest Total Artificial Heart (TAH-t)

In ?Iron Man? (2008), once again as in the comic of the same name, Tony Stark is caught in an explosion leaving shrapnel near his heart requiring him to design and create an artificial electromagnet to keep the shrapnel from entering his heart. Now this is pure fiction or is it?

The CardioWest company have created a full artificial heart, deigned to be a temporary unit to keep patients alive until a viable heart transplant can be found. Really interesting stuff can be found on their website (http://www.syncardia.com/cardiowesttaht/index.php) essentially a four valve pump is connected to an external pumping mechanism. It was originally designed as a permanent replacement for the heart but is only set up as a temporary measure due to the fact that the heart eventually fails or requires regular maintenance. 

James Bond Tech:

In researching James Bond tech, it occured to me I could almost do an article based on the tech in these 25 movies (Yes there were 24 movies and I will argue that to the death- 22 EON movies plus the 1995 and 1967 Casino Royale and the 1983 Never Say Never Again). I think its because for the technology in these movies to work on screen they have to be a mixture of believable and unbelievable, plausible yet outrageous, for them to work on screen. 

SEAN CONNERY ERA:

• Thunderball Air Supply Rebreather --->EBOA rebreather

In the movie ?Thunderball? (1965), James is equipped with an underwater air supply (not this air supply http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOQs1SeOUN0) that allows James to breathe underwater for 4 minutes. This is in essence is a rebreather.

A rebreather works by recirculating air exhaled by the user on the principle that a person only uses a quarter of the oxygen they breathe in. The exhaled Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is removed and replaced with oxygen from a tank of compressed air.

There are a range of personal rebreathers on the market but for this excersize I tried to research rebreathers that could fit into a pocket like the one in this movie. The Japanese EBOA company have created such a device. (http://www.therebreathersite.nl/Zuurstofrebreathers/Japan/photos_eoba.htm) 

• Diamonds are forever voice changer ---> Bioline Technology Group BT8083ADV Telephone voice changer

In ?Diamonds Are Forever? (1971) the main villain Blofeld (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blofeld) a recurring villain from the 5 previous James Bond movies and head of SPECTRE faked his own death and was posing as an oil baron Willard Whyte (a character based albeit loosely on Howard Hughes http://jamesbond.wikia.com/wiki/Willard_Whyte) . To do this he used a voice changer to change his German accent (I think it was supposed to be Polish or something-My ear for accents is not that good) to a Texan accent (once again...accents).

There are many voice changers for home telephones and mobile phones. One that I was able to find was the Bolide Technology Voice changer shown here (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/534873-REG/Bolide_Technology_Group_BT_8083ADV_BT_8083ADV_Telephone_Voice_Changer.html) Here?s how they describe it:

?The Bolide Technology BT-8083ADV is an audio changing device. This device allows the user to speak into the mic and process their voice for a change in various qualities. This voice changer is primarily used for children answering a phone at home alone or a woman changing her telephone voice for security purposes. This model has more adjustments, better sound quality and connectivity to more types of phones.?

Whether or not it will allow you to change your accent as well as your voice is up for discussion.

ROGER MOORE ERA:

• Octopussy TV watch ---> NHJ VTV TV wrist watch

In ?Octopussy? () a Seiko (which all the watches were in the Roger Moore Era) TV watch-which was a reality at this time (but Black and White only). Of course Roger Moore?s James Bond used this to to ogle I young ladies breasts in Q?s office. I remember seeing this, as a young-in, and thinking ?I want that watch!?.

TV wrist watches are actually nothing new, but I was able to find a pretty decent one from Japan. Released in 2004 the NHJ TV wrist watch  has a 1.5? (3.8cm) colour TFT screen built around a Sony chipset that can receive VHF and UHF TV signals but not digital. I am yet to find a digital TV watch- which will make it useless to me as UHF and VHF is being phased out in Australia in the next year or so.

PIERCE BROSNAN ERA:

• Tomorrow Never Dies Car (BMW 750il)---> Any GPS system

In the movie, ?Tomorrow Never Dies? (1997), Q (The irreplaceable Desmond Llewelyn) introduced James to his new car a BMW 750il. This car had the usual weaponry and secret compartments you?d expect in a spy car and it also had a guidance system that would guide James to his destination. Now this is pretty much a GPS system that you can pick up for as little as $100 with which you type in your destination and it tracks the appropriate route. You can even program it with different voice over voices, I think there?s even one that has a James Bond voice.

In this movie James was also able to control his car using a trackpad on his mobile phone. The iDriver App for an iPhone allows you to control a car with two controllers for brake and acceleration and you steer using the iPhones motion sensor.

Here's an interesting Youtube clip of the iDriver in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHDwKT564Kk

Jetsons:

• Rosie the Robot Maid--->Roomba Vacuum robot from iRobot

Rosie the Robot Maid was a character in the TV Show ?The Jetsons? (1962-1963, 1985-1987- voiced by Jean Vander Pyl). The character was depicted as the family?s maid and housekeeper and really who wouldn?t want the life of the Jetsons where you don?t have to vacuum your house (or in my case apartment).

In 2002 the Roomba autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner was introduced my the iRobot company designed to navigate a living room and its obstacles while vacuuming the floor. It also runs on rechargeable batteries and it even plugs itself in. There are approximately 2.5 million of these units on the market all over the world. And from a patriotic point of view iRobot is headed by Rodney Brooks from Adelaide Australia.

More information can be found here: http://irobot.com/ 

Star Trek:

Science Fiction garners a lot of technology that we would love in our homes. Who hasn?t been running late and thought ?Where?s that teleport technology on Star Trek??. I thought, from the TV show and movies of Star Trek  what technology do we see in our homes or potentially in our lives?

• Tricorder--->iPhone/Google Android

In the Star Trek universe a tricorder is a handheld scanning device for displaying and interpreting data and recording information. In the original series it was hardly handheld, but did come in a stylish leather satchel. In the advancement from the ?23rd to 24th Century? (Or from original series to next generation and beyond) the tricorder became a handheld device easily held in a holster. Different areas of expertise had different tricorders such as medical tricorders and engineering tricorders.

It did not take me too long to come up with a real-world example, with their hand held nature and computing power the current range of smart phones such as the iPhone or Android do fit the bill quite nicely. Except of course that they lack the ability to gather data external from itself. However NASA has developed a prototype device-the size of a postage stamp to gather information and record it on an iPhone App. This connects to the 30pin USB connection (or dock connection) on an iPhone.

• Video Screen--->Skype

The deck of The Enterprise (or any vessel it seems) in the Star trek universe had a screen where it would show where you were going (i.e. like a windscreen) or to communicate either within the ship or to other external ships. Video calls are nothing new to science fiction. A staple since the days of Buck Rogers. It seemed that the future the logical extension of the telephone was the video phone.

The video phone is no longer pure science fiction. Over the last few years my family have been keeping in touch using technology so that we can see each other as well as hearing. We use Skype and our laptops and desktops (with the appropriate hardware) to communicate over long distances. Us Cavanagh?s are spread over Australia and its great not only to hear their voices but to see them too. I guess we?re still a little far off the holograms on the Holodeck or even the hologram calls on Star Wars.

• Touch Screen computers---> Microsoft Surface

Introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation at the time it looked like computers got well and truly upgraded to the point of no longer needing those pesky keyboards and mice anymore. The touch screens on the Enterprise would adapt and change to the specific needs of the user and would be ultra responsive. All fiction I guess?

In April 2008 the Milan project introduced a new multi touch interface to computing called Microsoft Surface. This uses multi-gesture responses to run the Windows 7 interface. Plenty of other companies such as Philips and SmartSurface are working on consumer based versions of this product- personally I can?t wait to see what this garners for computers in the future.

• Geordi?s artificial eyes --->

The character or Geordi La Forge was introduced as part of the crew of ?Star Trek: The Next Generation? as a helmsman and later chief engineer. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge) This character was born blind and as a result wears a visor that allows him to see not only into our spectrum but into Ultra-violet and Infrared. That?s pretty impressive and how many disabled characters are shown to overcome their disability on TV. This is technology that should be available in todays day and age. 

In 2001 a team of researchers from three universities worked on artificial vision technologies. In 2006 a prototype of this technology was introduced that not only utilised technology but also advanced neurotechnology but at this point it can only discern the edges of items as a mixture of patterns and dots and not a high-resolution image.

More information shown here: http://www.cio.com/article/30745/Artificial_Vision_on_Par_with_Human_Eyesight

The Bionic Ear has been a reality since the 1970?s. Known as the Cochlear implant it works by sound being interpreted by a microphone stimulating electrodes that are attached to auditory nerves that gets interpreted as sound. Once again from a patriotic point of view this was developed by a team that included scientists and doctors from Melbourne Australia. This implant can now be surgically implanted into children as young as 12 months old. 

More information shown here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant 

That?s what sprang to mind when I started to think of Technology from movies that exists. Its a laundry list and I know I?ve missed a lot of them (I didn?t even get to the Fifth Element or G.I.Joe) if there are any your fond of comment below. Next time I?ll tackle the technology from movies that I wish existed or ?We were promised jetpacks? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Were_Promised_Jetpacks) 

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