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On 'Back To The Future' Day, What Technology Do You Wish Existed?

The future is, literally, now, at least in the Back to the Future universe: Oct. 21, 2015.

The sequel of the 1985 classic has time-traveling Marty McFly ogling at all kinds of cool things that the creators imagined we'd have by now.

Some of it has proven pretty prescient, some of it less so. Lots of comparisons can be found online: Here's one from the BBC, another from CNN, a list from Time, another from The Telegraph and one more from Vox (which also explores the date hoax).

NPR also spoke with the movie's production designer, Rick Carter, who says the movie was "an attempt to stimulate in the time it was made. It wasn't made for now."

But what technology do you really wish we had by now?

I'll start:

  • A teleportation device — I could use one for my regular trips to visit family overseas
  • An instant water boiler — I want my drip coffee/tea/noodles, and I want it now! (But I don't want to pay or eke out kitchen space for those hot-water dispensers.)
  • From Laura Sydell:

  • Carry-on luggage that flies to stow itself in an overhead bin
  • A few early contributions from Twitter (read lots of additional suggestions in the comments below and at @npralltech):

    Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

    Alina Selyukh is a business correspondent at NPR, where she follows the path of the retail and tech industries, tracking how America's biggest companies are influencing the way we spend our time, money, and energy.
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