8 Products from the Movies That Became Reality ...

1. GPS

One of the products from the movies that became reality was Global Positioning Technology such as that seen in Goldfinger (1964). The technology comes as an upgrade in James Bond’s car (of all places), and was a super high tech gadget. Nowadays GPS is commonplace and has multiple uses.

2. Bubba Gump Shrimp

If you’ve seen Forrest Gump you will totally understand about Bubba Gump Shrimp without me having to explain it. If you haven’t, the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company was inspired by the Tom Hanks movie and today the restaurant chain has more than 30 restaurants in 7 countries.

3. The Computer Tablet

Star Trek has spawned many devices that have crossed from movie to reality. Plus we have lots of eerily similar technology, such as the communicators that look like our cellphones, and their tricorders that do the same things as our mobile electronic noses. The most startling similarity is their computer pads. Not only do they do a lot of things that the iPad seems to do, they are also white plastic trimmed with a big screen in the middle that you can press to use.

4. A Spinning License Plate

In 2008, over half of speeders that were caught in China were using a spinning license plate, as a factory started pumping out “novelty” plate spinners, as seen in the Goldfinger 1964 movie. They are one of the many products from the movies that became reality that ended up serving criminal activities.

5. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Ok, work with me on this one. In 1977, a British writer by the name of Douglas Adams created a masterpiece novel of which a movie was made, in which there featured a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on a small device that fit into a back pocket. It contained everything that everyone had ever heard of. The only thing it didn’t have was a towel! So fast forward 12 years, enter Tim Berners-Lee – British scientist extraordinaire – and what did he invent? The Internet. Who can argue that the Net is actually pretty much the equivalent of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? And it still doesn’t have a towel! Actually, you could also argue that Mark Twain had some say in this as his short story “From The London Times’ of 1904” contained a worldwide network – Telectroscope – but that never made it to the movies.

6. Online Newspapers

It seems so normal these days to be able to read the news online, but not so back when Arthur C Clarke’s 1968 book became the classic sci-fi movie – 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is a perfect example of technology from the movies that has become reality (although of course, like so many ideas it was first conceived in a book).

7. The Underwater Camera

It’s not surprising really that many of the products from the movies that became reality come from James Bond – after all there was a whole Government department, headed by Q, just beavering away inventing cool stuff. In 1965, James Bond can be seen using an underwater camera in Thunderball. He was actually using a Belgian prototype. After appearing in James Bond, the inventor found funding to create a commercial line of underwater cameras that appeared on shelves in 1969. Out of interest, the device he rode on underwater in the same movie was demonstrated to the US navy in 1969 as a means of moving personnel underwater.

8. The Electronic Doctor

In Star Trek Voyager, an emergency medical hologram ends up being the only medically qualified person on the ship. His adaptive program allowed him to index all the medical knowledge of the Federation so that he can diagnose and then treat his patients. Now, in reality, thanks to new technology that allows quick information indexing and retrieval, there are now quite a few electronic doctors that use an avatar to treat patients. Each of them vary in complexity, from Web MD, to the Japanese supercomputer, but nevertheless the technology is here. Now all we are waiting for is hard-light holographics so that the doctor can also administer treatment.

Well, that was fun. What are your favorite products from the movies that have become reality? Or maybe there’s a concept that hasn’t yet been realized but you wish it had?