According to everything from Blade Runner to A Space Odyssey, we should already be zooming home from work in our flying cars, where robot butlers will serve us as we plan our next getaway to an orbiting Hilton. Trying to seriously predict the future is a losing battle, and for every supposedly eerie prophecy in fiction, dozens of stories have portrayed technological miracles or all-consuming apocalypses that never came to pass.
Sometimes, though, predictions do come true, even if they’re less about when we’ll start soaring through the stars and more about how we’ll live our lives on Earth. Star Trek has had a particularly notable track record, both because it takes its subject matter relatively seriously and because its longevity has given it a lot of kicks at the can. We’ll have to wait another 37 years to see if it was right about when we’d make first contact, but for now, here’s some Star Trek tech that looks mighty familiar in retrospect.
