Technology: From smartphones to video calling, science fiction has become real-life technology..

Hardly anyone is unfamiliar with video chatting, cell phones, drones, and robots, but do you know that these technologies have once been a part of the imaginations of film, TV shows, and bookwriters? Indeed, fiction can never become reality, and neither does science have any direct relation with science. Still, attempts have been made to show the extent to which technology can play a role in influencing and making our lives easier in science fiction films for many decades.

Hologram tables were first imagined in George Lucas' 'Star Wars (1977)' and video chat and flying cars were imagined in the TV show 'The Jetsons in the sixth decade of the last century. How amazing it is that the theoretical imaginations of all today's technologies originated in the minds of writers before scientists. Undoubtedly, these imaginations of seeing the future must have inspired scientists, due to which the use and effect of technologies could be realized in real life.

Smartphone
In 1966, the fictional device 'Communicator' was used for voice communication in 'Star Trek'. It was a device with a keypad and speaker, which was portable as well as flip. 30 years later, Motorola launched the first mobile flip phone. Even today, new experiments are being seen in flip phones.

Video call
Today people use many video conferencing apps including Zoom, FaceTime, and WeChat for personal calls and business meetings, etc. Crores of people make WhatsApp video calls every day. In the 1960 animated series 'The Jetsons', characters are seen doing video conferencing. Video conferencing was imagined in the German film 'Metropolis' and many novels.

Autonomous cars
Isaac Asimov's 1950 book 'The Evitable Conflict' imagined a world where robot brains are used to control vehicles. These robots also navigate and monitor traffic without human intervention.

Live language translation
Douglas Adams' book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) mentions a small fish called Babelfish that translates a user's words into their own language. This idea is seen in modern real-time translation tools like Google Translate and language translation earbuds.

Artificial intelligence
In Fritz Lang's film Metropolis released in 1927, the humanoid robot Machinemesh was imagined, which works like humans in a factory setting. Discussions about human and machine intelligence continue even today.

Disclaimer: This content has been sourced and edited from Dainik Jagran. While we have made modifications for clarity and presentation, the original content belongs to its respective authors and website. We do not claim ownership of the content.