It's a brave new world that we live in, but not so brave that no one saw it coming. There are countless examples of modern-day tech being predicted in science fiction media.

Flip Phones

The first mobile phone was created by Motorola in 1973, and even then they were massive and unwieldy. The communicator that was portrayed in the 1966 Star Trek series however, looked a lot like the flip phones we’d be carrying almost 40 years later. I wonder if the actors felt as cool flipping them open as we did with our Motorola RAZRs in 2006.

Photography: NBC Television

3D Printing

Another piece of tech featured in Star Trek was the replicator, a device that could print copies of food and other objects. While 3D printers aren’t that versatile today, they still feel like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Photography: Heliox Lab

Mechanized Combat Suits

From the power suits in Fallout to the Iron Man suit, we’ve all thought about fighting bad guys in mechanized armor. While we won’t bear witness to the Brotherhood of Steel anytime soon, the U.S. Military is working on a combat suit. It’s not a mechanized death machine, but it will feed soldiers information, and help them locate enemies using a range of sensors.

Photography: Raytheon

Antidepressants

It seems appropriate that the first mention of an antidepressant in a sci fi novel was a dystopian one. It was a pill called Soma in Brave New World which erased feelings of unhappiness. In the book, almost everyone took it and it feels prophetic almost 100 years later. It makes you wonder what the author saw when he wrote it.

Smartwatches

In 1962, Elroy Jetson was sporting a fancy new piece of jewelry in The Jetsons. He had a watch on his wrist that he used to watch videos and communicate with his family. It’s shockingly similar to the Smart watches we have today. Though, if we start getting maid robots, we'll probably need to come up with a name that's a little more culturally ambiguous than "Rosie." I don't think that will fly in 2024.

Photography: eBay

Taser

The taser is an interesting sci-fi related invention, because it was actually inspired by the sci-fi novel it's named after. The name is an acronym for the title of the 1911 book, Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle. It was invented after a series of airplane hijackings in the 1960s, so air marshals could use nonlethal force. Thomas may not be the most popular Swift, but thanks to him, a highjacker will be able to Shake it Off after being neutralized by an air marshal.

Photography: TASER.com

Video Calling

The first depiction of video calling appeared in film almost 100 years ago. In the movie Metropolis, a payphone-like video calling station had multiple dials to tune into the right frequency, like you would a radio. The makers of that movie would probably be surprised to see how much easier it is in practice. And I'm sure they'd be disturbed to see what many of us are using this technology for.

Photography: Andrew Parsons

Wireless Earbuds

Wireless earbuds were originally portrayed in the 1953 dystopian novel, Farenheit 451. It spoke of them as, "an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk, coming in on the shore of your unsleeping mind.” When you think of how we're conditioned for constant stimulation, it's an eerie prediction. There's a reason why that book is still considered a must-read.

Photography: Amazon/JBL

Self-Driving Cars

While self-driving cars aren't mainstream just yet, it seems like they're just around the corner. Considering Isaac Asimov predicted that we'd have them by 2014 in his 1942 novel, The Three Laws,, it’s safe to say he was pretty close. Many automakers are hoping to have self-driving tech ready to go by 2030, and I'd say 15 years is well within the margin of error on a guess that ambitious.

Photography: Tesla

Credit Cards

The first use of credit cards comes from a novel written in 1887 called Looking Backward. In the novel, credit cards are used to pay for things in a socialist utopia. When you think of the predatory nature of credit cards in the real world, utopia definitely doesn't come to mind.

Photography: Hloom.com