People watch sci-fi movies and get excited by the crazy ideas presented. Some of them even go on to become scientists or inventors, and many have helped bring the world inventions that mimic what they once saw in movies. In a way, these people are making a specific vision of the future happen, but some of these inventions aren’t really practical and are really more a form of wish fulfillment than they are moving humanity’s scientific advancement forward. But there are many inventions humanity could actually use, in a practical sense, that are also really cool and wouldn’t seem out of place in a science fiction movie…
10. An Accurate Breathalyzer-Type Device To Know If Someone Is High On Marijuana
Today, law enforcement everywhere has a difficult task on their hands when it comes to the roadways. They have to not only deal with drunk drivers, but drivers who are high on heroin, meth, and now (legally in many states) marijuana. And this raises a really difficult question for the police: How do you know if a driver is under the influence of marijuana, in a way that wouldn’t be instantly thrown out in any court of law in the country? The roadways need to be safe, but it’s no use prosecuting someone if you don’t have evidence that will hold up.
Now, a small startup does have a device they are testing with law enforcement that can also test for alcohol as well, but it’s limited. The device can only tell if you’ve smoked within the last two hours. This isn’t exactly the futuristic level we were talking about, but it likely would be a lot of help, and may be enough to keep the roads safe for the time being. While some people may dispute that they would be safe to drive sooner, two hours is a pretty reasonable window of time, especially for state regulation.
9. Home Security Systems That Use Carefully Targeted Infrasound To Scare Off Intruders
Today, we have a lot of state-of-the-art security systems but most of them are just concerned with motion detection, cameras, making loud noises, and so forth. And, of course, all of them alert law enforcement. However, some have already considered the use of infrasound detection in order to help find intruders, and with that in mind, infrasound could help us in an entirely different way. Instead of guard dogs, actual guards, or weapons and the legal liability they can involve, if infrasound could be properly weaponized you could essentially scare people off your property.
Infrasound, often known as the “fear frequency,” usually stirs up the fight or flight feeling in people, and in the absence of anything to fight, most people just…run. A properly designed passive system that could detect and target intruders could theoretically use inaudible sound in order to keep your property safe and secure - almost like a magical spell that deters intruders. And as we know, it doesn’t get much more futuristic than something your enemies cannot distinguish from magic. Infrasonic detection could snuff out intruders quietly and alert the police if needed, but the active component would likely scare them off before they even broke a window or got up to any other shenanigans. It might even help deter teenage vandals from your property or, to put it another way: it might finally get those young punks to stay the heck off your lawn.
8. The James Bond “Fingerprint” Gun, For Which Only A Partial Prototype Exists
In the recent James Bond movies with Daniel Craig, Q gives Bond a special gun that can’t be fired without his handprint. Now, while there isn’t anything like this in real life, a German company did try to make a prototype. However, it involved a separate watch and the whole thing was all rather cumbersome. This technology, if it could actually be implemented in a way that truly worked well on a consistent basis and didn’t require any extra components, could revolutionize gun safety in the modern world, and especially in America.
Of course someone looking to hurt people could still use their gun to do so, but they couldn’t use their dad’s gun, a friend’s gun, and so on. And, a huge amount of gun deaths are tragically accidental, like when a kid gets his hands on a parent’s gun and, sadly, it goes off. Technology like this would keep your firearm from being used against you by someone who took it, and avoid horrible accidents that would scar you for life and destroy your family and relationships.
7. An Exercise Bike - Or Bike Switching Station - That Powers A Home Generator As You Use It
At the moment, this is the stuff of fantasy because of the amount of power it would (or more to the point, wouldn’t) generate. A bike-powered generator could fuel, say, lights for a little bit…and that’s about it. Some people have done the math and it really doesn’t sound like much. However, our imaginations have always wondered about how much power we could get from our own work, and many of us think of hand crank emergency radios as a good analogy. Still, those don’t use very much power at all, and that’s the real problem. While powering some lights is within the realm of reason, the biggest reason people want electricity after a disaster is heating and cooling.
Those things require a much more significant amount of power, and thus it’s quite difficult to actually get enough to make a real difference, or do anything for any significant amount of time. The amount of effort, in comparison to what you actually get in terms of cooling, or heating, might not be worth it. If a bike with enough gears and an efficient enough system was created so that a small family could, at least, generate enough power to keep themselves warm, or cool, as needed, it would be an incredible help in any kind of big disaster.
6. Ferromagnetic Roadways And Walkways For Practical Hover-Vehicle Technology
Not long ago, people saw the demo of the Hendo Hoverboards and got very excited…only to quickly crash back down to earth. The Hendo Hoverboard could hold several hours worth of charge, and really and truly hovered above the ground. It was a dream come true to many (especially those of us who have been waiting for Hoverboards since Back to the Future II), until the realities of the project hit. Now, it was a genius bit of engineering and did use some clever new techniques, but it was basically maglev technology, which requires a surface with metals that interact with magnets to actually do anything at all. In other words, unless it was on top of the right metal surface, it was just a big hunk of expensive junk you could stand on. This meant you could use it nowhere other than places specially constructed its their use.
However, if we had ferromagnetic roadways, we could have hoverboards, hover cars, and other hover technology. With the precision of maglev technology, we could likely cut down greatly on accidents while increasing our overall speed and efficiency at the same time, which is a big win-win. Of course, this would be ludicrously expensive, but in the long term, if built right, it would probably also last a lot longer than our current roadways.
5. Researchers Are Looking Into Ways To Use Our Own Body Heat To Charge Our Phones
Several years ago, people latched onto an article about some very experimental ideas to use a small device in your pocket to generate energy from your body heat, and some magazines started wildly speculating that you would have body heat-powered smartphones before you knew it. However, several years of fast-moving technology later, we really aren’t any closer on that front. The good news is, researchers are looking into it now for real, and not just looking at something that theoretically could get there for unrelated reasons.
If something like this could be designed, it could at least help with supplementary power. It’s possible it would only be enough to slow down the battery degradation, and not charge it enough to go much farther, but with battery technology bottlenecked every little bit could help. This would allow us to push our phones just a little bit further without resorting to bulky and cumbersome backup batteries and the like.
4. If We Could Create A Truly Energy-Efficient World, Much Fossil Fuel Use Would Be Eliminated
Today, there’s an incredible amount of energy used that is simply untapped. This source is motion, in general. Whenever something is moving, a certain amount of force is used. Some of that energy is transferred (energy, as we know, cannot be created or destroyed). If we could truly harness all kinetic energy from movement, especially all of our movement throughout the day, and not waste any energy potential around us, we could greatly cut down on our reliance on fossil fuel and other energy sources.
One company that found its way onto Shark Tank called Tremont Electronics designed a special device that could help charge a smartphone while you walk. They are working on other smaller products, but are also thinking big. They hope to one day secure the funding to test their technology to make “wave farms,” where energy is generated by using the motion from… well, waves. That was probably obvious. With this kind of technology, we could take green energy to an entirely new level most people never before imagined.
3. Affordable Water Filtration Infrastructure That Removes Pharmaceuticals And The Like
Today, the water infrastructure of some of the biggest countries - including the United States - has some huge deficiencies. And we aren’t even talking about places like Flint. But a huge amount of pharmaceutical byproducts are ending up in the water supply. Unfortunately, many water filtration plants are not properly equipped to clean this stuff out of the water. Even those sites that can get most of it out often only boast success rates of about 95%, which doesn’t sound so great when you realize the other 5% or so is pharmaceutical byproducts in your water.
To make matters worse, the FDA doesn’t really even have proper guidelines for this yet in the USA, and there really isn’t a standardized technology, much less a standardized system or set of methods get water to a safe level across the country. Part of the problem is people aren’t even sure what a safe level is with some of this stuff, as hormones have even ended up in the water can have effects in incredibly low concentrations, which we don’t even fully understand yet. If someone could invent a filtration method that could get this stuff out entirely (or, at least, almost entirely), and get water to a safe level - that could be easily implemented across the country - it would be an incredible help to humanity.
2. Sound Technology That Allows You To Filter And Hear Only What You Want To Hear
Hearing aids allow deaf people, or those hard of hearing, to hear. There are now special prototype speakers out there that can direct sound to an almost pinpoint degree, to the point where it will only be heard in one small location. Now, the second technology is fairly new and experimental, but with a little tweaking the two could be combined into an incredible invention. If you could truly direct sound accurately enough, you could make a device you could fit in your ear that could block out everything except for the sounds you did want to hear.
Imagine having a device where you could tell it to listen only to the TV in front of you, and not anything else that might be going on in the background. You could also use it to pay better attention to a conversation without worrying about background noise, or just shut out people or things that are bothering you in your environment. Let’s face it: All of us need our peace and quiet sometimes, and almost everyone would use this.
1. Even In The Year 2018, In The Fanciest Cars, You Won’t Find A Truly Accurate Gas Gauge
It’s fairly amazing to think that, even in the year 2018 - when most vehicles now are decked out with all of the most ridiculous new gauges and sensors and features - the one thing that’s stayed pretty much the same is the gas gauge. It still operates on the same principle with the floater mechanism where, on inclines, you may think you have more (or less) gas than you really do, and overall even when you think it’s full, it often really isn’t.
The truth is your gas gauge is actually designed to lie to you, mainly because car manufacturers think you enjoy the crazy game of trying to figure out how much gas you have left at any given time, and like going for broke - psychologically speaking. They also like to give you the false sense of security you get when you think it’s full when it really isn’t. Apparently, people really enjoy that feeling and don’t like how quickly the full meter would truly go away. Now, we believe that in 2018 people are grown up enough to accept the truth and enjoy the convenience of a truly accurate gas meter. It would lead to fewer people being stranded on the road, as they’d know the exact percentage at any given time - if this theoretical design was done right - and it would just be a great convenience for everyone in general.
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