What are some popular consumer products?

What are some futuristic consumer products you know?

  • I am looking for futuristic everyday consumer products that are the result of advanced research and development. Like stuff made for space travel, or extreme environments and situations, e.g. the Fisher Space Pen, highly functional workout clothes, Soylent, etc. Basically products that makes you think you're living in the future. Industry doesn't matter.

  • Answer:

    You may be interested in NASA's https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2008/tech_benefits.html. It's not all consumer goods, but you might be surprised what you use every day that was developed for the space program.

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This is both good and bad futuristic: The fact that everything is in a database, and all the databases are connected. Here's an example of the kind of connectivity I mean. A guy totaled my parked car. His insurance company rented me a car -- when I went to the rental place, they were waiting for me, knew exactly who I was and why I was there; they had all my data already. They just tossed me the keys. The insurance company bought my totaled car. I lost the pink slip, I said. It was from another state, I said. Don't worry about it, we've already got the data. Sign right here. I bought a new car. My own insurance company brokered the deal. I went online, pointed at a car and said, that one. Go down and pick it up, they said. All the financial and registration stuff was already taken care of, my name already on every document. Keys were on the guy's desk, waiting for me. To celebrate the new car, I drove from the U.S. into Canada. I got about 100 yards over the border before my phone chirped with a text message. Hey, we noticed you're in Canada -- here's how the roaming charges work. I drove over a toll bridge. They photographed my license plate, connected to a U.S. database and a few weeks later, they sent a paper bill right to my door. I paid online, and then my bank emailed me. Hey, we just wanted to point out that your debit card was run by the Canadian toll bridge company -- is everything OK? Look, I know I'm describing Rich Suburban White Guy Dream Land, and it's not like this for most people. But every time I turn around, I'm like, holy fuck, how do you people know all this? And how the FUCK did this shit all work back in the 60s, when I was born? I can't decide if living back then was Utopia or Hell on Earth.

Cool Papa Bell

GPS is a good example, with atomic clocks and relativity and an entire fleet of satellites to help tag our tourist photos.

moonmilk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PrimaLoft was originally developed for the US army and really is pretty amazing.

veery

You should probably clarify when the objects would seem futuristic. Things like petroleum-fueled cars are electric lighting would be considered wildly futuristic only 150 years ago. Smartphones, GPS and today's Internet would seem futuristic just a couple of decades past, but are pretty old-hat at this point. Things that still seem futuristic to me today, yet have wide commercial availability: * The Tesla Model S (and, to a lesser extent, other modern electric cars) * RFID-based key entry and ignition systems in cars * Curved, OLED TVs * LED lighting * SSD memory * Large solar installations & modern windmills for power generation

eschatfische

Futuristic as in futuristic (CONSUMER products) to you today.

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Amazon echo and to an extent google now are still marvels to me. My echo let's me control my lights and sound system (and anything else that works with wink or smart things or has IFTTT) by voice alone and its error rate is only around 5% (google now fails about 20% of the time and don't even ask about siri).

dstopps

Google Maps and Street View

Cool Papa Bell

The Kindle and just tablet devices always make me think we're living the dream of HG2G.

DarlingBri

Real-time video communication has been a sci-fi staple pretty much forever. It is now available to anyone with a smart phone or computer.

pheide

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