1. technology and computing

2015 as displayed in Back
to the Future Part II
Gadidjah Margrét Ögmundsdóttir
10/4/2015
Course: T-611 New Technology
Teacher: Ólafur Andri Ragnarsson
Contents
1. Introduction.......................................................................................................................... 2
2. Accurate predictions ........................................................................................................... 3
2.1. Video conferencing ....................................................................................................... 3
2.2. Home automation ......................................................................................................... 4
2.3. Biometrics ...................................................................................................................... 5
2.4. Drones ............................................................................................................................ 6
2.5. Augmented reality ........................................................................................................ 7
3. The “bit off” predictions ..................................................................................................... 8
3.1. Holographic films ......................................................................................................... 8
3.2. Hoverboard.................................................................................................................... 9
4. Far off predictions ............................................................................................................. 10
4.1. Flying cars .................................................................................................................... 10
4.2. The dominating fax machine .................................................................................... 11
4.3. Clothing ........................................................................................................................ 12
4.4. Where are the smartphones? ..................................................................................... 12
5. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 14
6. Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 16
1
1. Introduction
Back to the Future Part II is a comedic science fiction movie directed by Robert
Zemeckis. In this piece of classic cinematography, released in 1989, the characters
from 1985 travel to the year 2015 experiencing a whole new world of technological
wonders. This world was created according to the filmmakers’ predictions of how
the year 2015 would look like. A "team of future-obsessed concept designers" aided
them in creating a world which was futuristic without being too silly for the
audience back in 1989.[1] Even though it was important to them to showcase realistic
and accurate predictions the movie was made for entertainment purposes. This being
the case many predictions sprung up from the filmmakers’ desire to see these
futuristic things come alive. In addition, some predictions didn't make it to the movie
because they were seen as too foolish or potentially inaccurate.[2] The futuristic
desires of the filmmakers might have influenced some innovation to this date, such
as the Hendo Hoverboard.[3]
The predicted 2015 has flying cars and thus floating road signs and traffic regulations
in the sky. It also includes hoverboards, self-drying and fitting clothing, automated
homes, dehydrated pizzas, video conferencing, dominant fax machines, and many
other peculiarities. Many things collide with the real 2015, other things are far off,
and some things are completely missing.
This report discusses the predictions made of the year 2015 in the 1989 movie Back to
the Future Part II. The predicted technologies as well as the predicted behavioral
changes based on those technologies are evaluated and analyzed. How well can the
future be predicted? Is it possible to foresee the chain effect of innovation, leading to
new technology and behaviors? Why were some advancements of technology easier
to predict than others?
This report is structured as follows: In section two the predictions which came true
are discussed, in section three the discussion will continue on predictions which were
not completely right and section four covers those predictions which were far off as
well as technologies which were missed altogether. In the fifth and last section, it is
concluded how well the team behind Back to the Future Part II predicted the year
2015.
2
2. Accurate predictions
This section covers predictions which were accurate. What might have supported
their accuracy is that the filmmakers did not build the world from scratch but
overlaid futuristic technology over a recognizable present. E.g. The act of walking
dogs is recognized but having a drone to do it is futuristic.[4]
2.1. Video conferencing
A scene from the movie Back to the Future Part II: A call comes in (ring tone rings)
and the kids put on their glasses to see who is calling. After this the kids notify their
dad (Marty McFly) that the caller is “Needles” and that he is asking to speak with
him. Marty McFly walks to the living room and starts the video conference by
turning on the TV.
This scene of receiving a video call might just as well be a description of receiving a
Skype call in the real 2015. The glasses which notify the household members of the
call could be the equivalence of Google Glass or a smartphone. Video conferencing
on flat screen TV is definitely not unheard of, it is actually quite common.
Enabling technologies for video conferencing by TV include video telephony, and a
TV capable of receiving and transmitting the conference. Looking back, the idea of
video telephony had already come up within two years of the telephone being
invented: Edison’s `telephonoscope’.[5]
The filmmakers predicted that video conferencing would be the standard, maybe
because they didn’t forecast the smartphone or cellphone at all which will be
discussed further in section four. They also predicted the large HD flat screen TV’s.
In the 1990’s TV’s were under constant development, each years’ model had
something new to offer: a bigger screen, lighter frame, etc. Huge and thin TV's might
be as futuristic as could have been predicted in 1989. Modern Smart-TV’s were
completely off the radar.
Today, in the real 2015, video conferencing through TV is possible with a TV which
can be connected to the Internet, has a camera, either a built-in or connected one, and
a Skype account. Video conferencing is used a lot, not necessarily with TV but
probably most through smartphones and laptops and through a selection of many
different video calling programs: Skype, Google Hangouts, Viber, FaceTime, etc.[6]
An especially interesting detail in the video conference between Marty McFly and
Needles is the overlaid information on the screen showing Marty what Needles likes
and dislikes. This heavily resemblances social networking today, one could almost
imagine the Facebook’s “like” symbol on the screen. With this small detail of
3
personalized information added to the conference call, the filmmakers capture
(probably accidentally) an important glimpse of the future.
The filmmakers also capture how convenient video conferencing can be. A meeting
where it is important to see the other attendants can be held from your own living
room. In the movies video conference, Needles proposes that Marty should take part
in a business proposal which might jeopardize his job. After Marty accepts and ends
the video call his boss video calls him merely seconds later to fire him. This saves
Marty’s boss the trouble of having to meet Marty face to face and Marty does not
waste his time by going to work the following day just to get fired. Perhaps a naïve
example, but the truth of the matter is that video conferencing has enabled better
telecommunication. It is often better to see the person you are talking to. Most likely
huge amounts of dollars have been saved in flight tickets with partners located on
the other sides of the world, and Skype has no doubt saved countless of long distance
relationships.
2.2. Home automation
In Marty McFly's house (in the fictional Back to the Future universe), people have
fingerprint sensors next to their front doors and these are used to enter the building.
After the fingerprint scan, the house knows the identity of the visitor and sets the
home accordingly based on the person’s needs. The lights are turned on/off and
sound systems are activated to greet whoever is entering. Besides all of this, home
appliances can be controlled by voice, such as the vegetable garden, lights and TV.
All this, in Marty McFly’s house, would today be called as home automation. There
already are a number of home appliances which can be controlled by voice, such as
lights and TV. Home automation might not be the standard in 2015 but it is under
constant development. Today there are 1.9 billion appliances which connect to homes
and by 2018 they will be around 9 billion of them.[7]
The film depicts a house with voice controlled appliances. Perhaps the `clapper'
sparked this idea. The clapper is a sound activated on/off switch made famous by TV
commercials in the 1980's.[8] It was a device which is plugged in to an outlet and
then the TV or lamp is plugged to the device. By clapping the lamp or TV would turn
on and turn off with the second clapping. The clapper is possibly the first device
bringing home automation to life.
The current trend in home automation devices and innovations can be depicted as
the need of making homes smart; and by a large extent, all of that is driven by the
development of the Internet of things. By intertwining home automation with the
Internet of things the home appliances are able to communicate with each other
4
through Internet. The communication would happen automatically requiring as little
interaction with the household as possible.
A smart home is a home which is as automated as possible. Automation of such a
scale as knowing when to turn the lights off from a room based on the activity of
household members. If the last person in the room leaves, or the young couple is
preparing for a night’s sleep, the lights should turn automatically off. Another twist
of the smart home is that the home will know who you are, possibly based on a tiny
computer chip inserted into us or maybe by our personal smartphones. How the film
depicted that was with the household identifying themselves through biometrics
before entering the house.
As depicted in the film there are behavioral changes with home automation, the
characters go about in their home speaking all kinds of commands to the household
appliances. When frustrated of the appliances’ slowness they even yell. Another
noticeable thing is that remote controls are nowhere to be seen.
2.3. Biometrics
There are no door handles in the Back to the Future Universe in 2015. As discussed in
the home automation section, the characters put their thumbs up to a board which
recognizes that the person has an access to the house and the home greets the person
based on their identity. For example, Mrs. McFly has the lights turned off when she
enters the room, it is never explained why she prefers it like that; maybe she just
hadn’t bothered to change the settings. The thumb recognition system imagined in
the movie can be described as a biometric device. In the real 2015 biometrics are in
common use.
Writer Bob Gale has said that at the time of the filmmaking, he was inspired by
articles discussing the development of technology behind using thumbs as an ID
method.[9] As now is known, that prediction was spot on and biometrics are getting
more and more visible. For some of us, the use of biometrics is a daily occurrence. In
some gyms, the members can gain access to the facility by fingerprint scan.[10]
Others use it to unlock their phones such as the iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S5.
Besides, a device to unlock doors using thumbprints like in the movie already came
to life in 2006.[11]
Biometrics are a safe and handy way to identify ourselves, as it is very hard to fake
an identity in a biometric scan, and there is no need to remember numerous
passwords which certainly are abundant enough in our daily lives. Biometrics are
used in airports to fully identify the visitor and that way we are our own
identification and can almost certainly guarantee that we are not lying about our
identity.
5
2.4. Drones
Dog walking drones and flying drones are an example of what can be seen in the film
Back to the Future Part II. There may not be official dog walking drones sold in the
markets yet, but the technology to make them happen already exists. Besides, believe
it or not, a drone hobbyist has already made his own dog walking drone.[12][13]
The writers came up with the idea of drones by thinking of normal things in the '80s
and transforming them to something futuristic by adding a “technological spin” on
them. Their outcome was small “robots” performing everyday tasks for us.[9] The
drones in the film were small, could fly unmanned and served some kind of purpose.
How they are envisioned in the movie is close to how the drones of 2015 have come
reality.
The drones today do come in different shapes and sizes with different
responsibilities. Drones are probably most accustomed to military. Other than that,
they can be used to survey crops, for search and rescue operations, and as Amazon
wants to use them as a part of their delivery system.[14][15] Drones are also popular
among so called drone-hobbyists, where the drone is an innovative resource for them
to play around and develop their own ideas, e.g. the dog walking drone mentioned
above.[12][16]
Drones are capable of serving many different purposes and solving problems in a
more economic manner. An example of this is their possible usage of delivering
medicine, food, goods and other supplies cheaply and fast without the limitation of
roads being an issue. Drones could give 1.7 billion people whom don’t have access to
all-season roads more safety. The cost of transferring 2kg over 10 km with a drone
costs 0.24 USD. To set up a drone network covering an area of 138km2 requires
requires 50 drone stations and 150 vehicles, which would cost approximately 0.9 M
USD. This is considerably less than the cost of setting up a delivery system based on
old fashioned roads and trucks.[17]
With new technology comes new behavior. It seems that the US’s Federal Aviation
Administration is very cautious about the usage of drones. At the moment the
legislation approving commercial use of drones is late by a year. This delay has
haltered Amazon’s plans to deliver packages weighing less than five pounds by
drones. This has forced the company to test the “drone delivery”-method outside of
the US.[15] Besides the regulations for companies, also drone hobbyists have to
follow safety guidelines and respect operation limits. The safety guidelines are for
example that the drone should always be flown strictly for hobby or recreational use,
always keeping the drone in eyesight and not steer it near manned aircraft.[18]
6
2.5. Augmented reality
In the movie Doc, the “crazy” professor of the film series, looks through binoculars
which present information based on what he is looking at. In one scene, the binocular
shows him the distance of a woman walking by. This technology might be called
augmented reality, although being very a primitive one when compared to the
augmented reality today. The smartphones are capable of a lot more impressive
information relaying than Doc’s binoculars. Augmented reality has advanced further
than the filmmakers predicted in 1989.
The idea of overlaying information on what we see with our bare eyes using
computers, for example on glasses, is dated further than 1989. In 1978 Steve Mann
had begun his development of what he calls the `Digital Eye Glass' which is a similar
concept as the Google Glass. The Google Glass’s first prototype dates back in 2012.
Mann completed his Digital Eye Glass in 1999.[19][20] Augmented reality was not
yet a thing in 1989 even though Mann was already developing his glasses a decade
ahead.
Today augmented reality is seen in numerous smartphone apps, which overlay
information onto the smartphone screen (such as street names, the location of the
closest Mexican restaurant and etc). When Google launched their prototype of
Google Glass in 2012 it showed promise in replacing our smartphones by moving our
vision/attention from our hands and more to our surroundings.[19][20] The product
was marketed as a tool which would enable us to fully appreciate and capture each
moment without potentially ruining them by grabbing smartphones out of our
pockets. Recently Microsoft also showcased an augmented reality glasses in which
they aim to change how we see the world, creating new possibilities of work, play
and learning environments. [21]
Google Glass showed a good promise, but has not been received too well in all
circles. People have reported feeling uncomfortable with persons using Google Glass.
In many circumstances the Google Glass feels like an invasion of privacy, as you can
never know if the user is filming you with the glasses. It is also hard to know if the
user is actually present or sucked in to the virtual world produced by the glasses.
This might be why Google Glass has not taken over the smartphones yet as well as
being the reason for them halting the Google Glass project for now.[22][23] Time will
tell if Hololens will do better than Google Glass.
7
3. The “bit off” predictions
This section covers the predicted technologies which we are partly seen today, but
are somehow differently or inaccurately presented in the movie
3.1. Holographic films
A scene from the film: Marty McFly is checking out the Jaws 19 advertisement (the
19th follow-up of the classic Jaws movie: an iconic horror movie from 1975) when the
shark suddenly swims towards him with jaws wide open and takes a bite. This
leaves Marty in one piece, but he certainly looks terrified. This is how the filmmakers
depicted the movie experiences in their view of 2015. The films would be presented
as a kind of a “holographic 3D”; a much more interesting format than the the
traditional motion film from a 2D screen.
Today, movies have not been made for holographic viewings but what is offered are
3D movies and IMAX. What 2015 does offer us regarding realistic experiences are
virtual reality goggles and machines. Holographic videos are already possible but
each frame takes a long time to generate. It is also questionable, how handy these
holographic videos would be to generate in cinemas or in personal living
rooms.[24][25]
In 1901, stereoscopic photography was available for anybody. This led to
experimenting with films of three dimensions but without much success. Then in
1939 a 3-D viewer was created. But 3D films didn’t really take off until 1952 which
was its “golden era”. [26]
Dennis Gabor was awarded with a Nobel Prize for his work related to the invention
and development of the holographic method already in 1971.[27] Taking this into
consideration, the idea of holography and 3D-films had sprung up long before 1989.
The filmmakers certainly had this history on, and the development of the technology
seemed obvious. How are there no holographic movies and advertisements in the
cinemas by now? The holography method is in development and hopefully will be
seen more in the near future.[24]
3D movies have been here for some time already and the advancing technology
improves the quality of the movies. Besides, as the 3D-filming got cheaper, more
filmmakers had the resources to create their films in 3D. This hardly ever resulted to
better movies in a sense of their artistic value as many directors were incapable of
enhancing the movie experience with the added dimension. In the end, the 3Dtechnology does not give much for the story telling ability of motion pictures, and
the third dimension is most often used for scattered “wow”-effects which lose their
value rapidly as the viewer gets used to the 3D scenery. The oversupply of films in
8
3D has caused people to lose excitement over the 3D technology and many prefer to
watch films again in traditional 2D. [28]
3.2. Hoverboard
Hover technology is everywhere in the fictional Back to the Future 2015. Cars,
skateboards, scooters and TV broadcasting screens have some sort of hovering
technology behind them. Maybe the most interesting hover gimmick is the
hoverboard. Hoverboard is a hovering skateboard without wheels. It looks swift, is
quiet, and it seems to work on every surface except water.
Back in 1989 hoverboards did not exist; there was no signs of them at all. Even
though the Robert Zemeckis leaked that it was in development, later it turned out
that the scientists deemed the problem of hovering technology too hard to solve.[29]
The main goal of the hoverboard was to capture Marty's skateboarding from the
previous Back to the Future film and make it futuristic: thus the hoverboard.
Hoverboard was the filmmakers futuristic dreams. [9]
There are companies out there experimenting with hover technology. In October 21,
2014 a Kickstarter project was launched featuring the development of hoverboards
with the goal of raising 250000 USD, the project ended up raising double that amount
with 3169 backers. The company behind it, Hendo Hoverboards, has already built a
working hoverboard and has promised to deliver the first set of production Hendo
Hoverboards in October 2015. The look and feel of these hoverboards is not the same
as depicted in the film. They are limited and can only hover over certain types of
surfaces, but the company hopes to find a solution to these limitations.[3] The
company has high hopes for the hovering technology and is thinking further than the
hoverboard gimmick. They plan to license the technology for factories, warehouses
and generally for levitating heavy objects. In their Kickstarter campaign they state
that `hover is the future'. That the hover technology can shift the current
transportation paradigm, it will change how planes, trains and automobiles work.
Buildings could also be levitated saving them from natural disasters like floods and
earthquakes.[30] They call the technology MFA which stands for Magnetic Field
Architecture. Their development is rapid but sooner or later MFA might change the
world and how we think of building it. [29] [31]
9
4. Far off predictions
This section covers predictions which we might still wish will come true as well as
technologies that weren’t predicted at all which might have caused failure in
capturing new behavioral trends.
4.1. Flying cars
Roads are unnecessary in the fictional 2015. The cars can fly without any acceleration
on a flat surface. They also do not need wings or landing strips as airplanes require.
The real 2015 has brought us flying cars but they are much closer to airplanes than
the flying DeLorean and Taxi cabs of the fictional 2015.
The real flying cars are a hybrid of airplanes and cars; they have “wings”, need a
runway to lift off, and have complicated steering system requiring a pilot’s license.
What is most different regarding the flying cars of the real 2015 and the predicted
one is that the flying cars are not a commodity in the real world. The real flying cars
are either being presold or not for sale at all.
In the Back to the Future II world of 2015, the hovering technology is dominating. It
seems that the technology behind the flying car is hover related as the only thing the
car needs to do is rotate its wheels and fly off. As the hovering technology is
completely dominating and the flying cars have replaced the traditional ones, flying
must be really affordable in fictional 2015.
The first flying car was the Ford Flivver of 1926. Ford ended that project after the
Flivver killed its test pilot in 1928.[32] Flying cars have been in people’s dreams for a
long and it seems that they were the also in the dreams of the filmmakers.
In reality flying cars exist. AeroMobil is an example. The company displayed version
3.0 of the car in October 2014 and they hope to launch their first flying car in 2017. It
seems clear that the flying cars won't be available to everybody as the CEO names
the price of the car to be over a `couple of hundred thousand Euros' as well as the
driver will have to have a pilot's license. The CEO mentions that he hopes that the
AeroMobil will revolutionize personal transportation. He believes the flying cars are
the solution to the traffic prison, the airport prison and the prison of bad
infrastructure of personal transportation.[33][34]
Another example of a flying car is the Terrafugia's Transition. People have already
begun to pre-order the Transition. Back in 2012 Terrafugia had over 100 preorders.[35] The Transition is described as a street-legal airplane, at the price of 279000
USD for people with a Sport Pilot Certificate.[36]
10
Ideally flying cars would be safe and have the same usability of a traditional car. This
requires major leaps in technology of vertical takeoff and landing as well as ensuring
safety and regulation in the air. Walking on the streets of Reykjavík is dangerous
enough without the possibility of a flying car crashing to your head or a streetlight
suddenly dropping from the sky. The fictional roads in the clouds remain fictitious
until the safety of the technology can be guaranteed. The safety might be ensured
first with self-driving cars and later on self-flying cars.[37]
4.2. The dominating fax machine
Fax machines seem to be quite dominant in the fictional Back to the Future
universum. In our real 2015, fax machines are almost nowhere to be seen and long
forgotten. In McFlys’ house, fax machines are all over the place and their importance
feels overly exaggerated.
The probable reason for their dominance is the overestimation of the impact of a
brand new technology back in 1989, not realizing the possibility of fax machines
being quickly replaced by a newer technology. In 1989 the fax machines were a
technological breakthrough; with fax machines it was possible to send pictures to
another person.[4] This was an astonishing fact in 1989, but as we know now, the
Internet took over and it is possible to send a picture of your cat to all of your friends
with one swipe of a finger. The importance of Internet had not been discovered by
the filmmakers in 1989.
As the fax machines were dominating in the movie, the importance of paper was also
overestimated. That way there was put some focus on paper technology such as dust
repellent paper. This kind of technology has not gotten limelight in reality. In reality
paper is used more sparingly with more availability of getting books electronically
rather than on paper.
Fax machines are still around, but their numbers are growing thin. 2015 technology
comparison of the 1989 fax technology might be the 3D printer. [38] The 3D printer is
revolutionizing how we think of objects, resources and mass-manufacturing. What
would be equivalent to the fax machine in the real 2015 technology might be the 3D
printer. The 3D printer can be used to print out almost anything the mind can think
of. 3D printer projects can be shared with other people by Internet and that way 3D
printing ideas can be shared between people, not just the faxed paper.
11
4.3. Clothing
Self-drying, self-fitting and self-lacing clothing was the smart clothing in the fictional
2015 of Back to the Future Part II. Reality’s smart clothing brings us computerized
clothing which notifies us about our health, among other things. Many “smart
clothing” innovations are currently in development and some products are already
available for the normal consumer.
Nike claims that the self-lacing Nike sneakers are being developed and through hard
work of the developing team the sneakers will be available later this year.[39]
However, there are no news of self-fitting and self-drying clothing, which leads to
believe that self-fitting and self-drying clothing is not being developed as the
technology behind it might be too complicated or that the priorities of smart
wearable’s lies elsewhere.
Live Athos is an example of smart clothing in the real world. It features sports
clothing with wearable technology. Biosignal monitoring is built directly into the
clothing fabric. They have one shirt and one shorts available both with EMG sensors
which monitor muscle activity as well as heart rate sensors. In addition the shirt has
breathing sensors. The clothing does not have to be plugged in to a power outlet to
work but the so called core of the clothing needs to be charged with a battery lasting
about 10 hours. The core is the computer of the clothing; it contains the electronics
and intelligence to collect and interpret the biosignals from the clothings sensors and
then sending it to a mobile device with the Live Athos app. The clothing detects
muscle effort, muscle target zones based on selected goal in app, muscle fatigue,
heart rate and breathing patterns. As well as sending the information to the
smartphone app to be viewed and kept track of progresses the clothing will let the
trainee know in real-time if the training posture is bad and how to correct and if the
breathing is shallow. With this type of training clothing information such as seeing
how hard each muscle is working might boost our knowledge about our bodies and
possibly help us reach goals in a faster, more efficient way. All of this is possible for
the amount of 397 USD which includes the whole gear: core, shirt and shorts.[40]
4.4. Where are the smartphones?
One thing completely missing from the films is the dominance of mobile phones in
our lives, more accurately smartphones. Where are they? It is maybe no wonder that
they were not predicted, smartphones were thought innovative even in 2007 when
Apple `reinvented' the mobile phone.[41] But how come the characters don't use
mobile phones, there was video conferencing by TV but no mobile phone seemed to
be connected to that scene. The first public call ever made on a cellphone was in 1973
. In 1989 Motorola's personal telephone was thought to be the first portable phone
12
causing normal people to join in on the cellphone fun.[42] Then the market just kept
growing and growing creating many high-stake companies. Back in 1989 it was the
technology that nobody saw coming, but when it came it took over changing
people’s lives and behaviors.
The only phones seen in the movie are phone boxes which are not a very common
sight in reality.[43]
13
5. Conclusion
Computer related predictions seem to have been rather accurate. In the film home
automation is all about computerized appliances which react to voice commands.
Drones are flying computers capable of flying around with responsibilities such as
walking the dog or displaying the news. Augmented reality in the film was depicted
as computerized binoculars able to calculate simple things such as distances and
radiuses of objects. Biometrics were used as a computerized identity mechanism
which connect to the home and home automation. Why these predictions were
possible is partly because of the computer being small and scalable, it is easier to
imagine the computer in almost any objects and how it has the potential of changing
the object. Even more today than back in 1989 as computers have the potential to be
as light as a chip having people consider to insert them into our brains and everyday
objects which might not benefit from being computerized. But the fact that the
computers have gotten so cheap that no one really cares that money will be spent on
it.
Yet some predictions including computers did not translate well to reality such as the
technology of the clothing, the clothing which was self-fitting has not been available
in 2015, but there are some mentions of self-drying clothing and self-lacing shoes
being underway.
Large predictions such as flying cars and hover technology rely on technology which
was not available in 1989 and there has not been enough time to develop that
technology sufficiently to provide flying cars and hoverboards in reality yet. Some
sort of hovering technology is being worked on and whether it will revolutionize the
world as the company behind it imagines will have to be seen. Most probably
hovering technology will take years to take over. The flying cars depicted in the film
seem to rely on hover technology but as that technology isn’t fully constructed in
reality the development of flying cars has been on the lines of constructing an
airplane-car hybrid which is not how common people imagine the flying car as it is
limited to wealthy people with pilot certificates.
The predicted dominance of the fax machines is caused by overestimating a new
technology of 1989. Other technologies have involved which have taken over the
responsibilities of the older one. In this case it is the Internet which has evolved to
that state that sending text, pictures and other attachments over the Internet is an
easy task available through many different platforms: email, social media,
The lacking prediction of smartphones definitely misses out on important behavioral
changes. The smartphone has become our technological brain and soon might even
be our identity. It knows us, what we like and how we behave. It gives us near
constant connection to the Internet which enables the behavior of Googling anything
are skeptic about, in doubt of or simply want knowledge about something. The
14
smartphone also means constant reachability and through that safety. It also means
that we can be connected to social media at all times, staying updated with friends
halfway across the world or follow every tweet of our favorite movie star.
In general the movie Back to the Future Part II did a decent job of depicting the
world of 2015. We have gone over predictions which have come true, are in
development, others which were far off and lastly technology which couldn’t be
predicted. I’m not sure that people of 2015 can relate well to the characters of the
fictional 2015 mainly because of the funky futuristic 80’s clothing and the dominant
hover technology. But I do believe that certain scenes are highly relatable, specifically
the scenes taking part in the home where flat screen TV’s can be seen in every room.
15
6. Bibliography
[1] “We Asked „Back to the Future‟ Writer Bob Gale to Predict 2045,” Newsweek, 14-Jan2015. [Online]. Available: http://www.newsweek.com/we-asked-back-future-writer-bobgale-tell-us-about-year-2045-299438. [Accessed: 07-Apr-2015].
[2] “Here‟s the Original Futuristic Concept Art From „Back to the Future Part II,‟”
Newsweek, 10-Jan-2015. [Online]. Available: http://www.newsweek.com/heres-originalconcept-art-back-future-part-297169. [Accessed: 10-Apr-2015].
[3] “Hendo Hoverboards - World‟s first REAL hoverboard,” Kickstarter. [Online]. Available:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/142464853/hendo-hoverboards-worlds-first-realhoverboard. [Accessed: 10-Apr-2015].
[4] “Everything „Back to the Future Part II‟ Got Right and Wrong About 2015, According to
Futurists,”
Newsweek,
28-Dec-2014.
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