10 Movies That Predicted the Future

Minority Report (2002)
This Tom Cruise film about near-future police using psychics to predict -- and thereby intercept -- criminals proved very pre-cog indeed regarding new technology.

The gesture-manipulated computer interface -- where holographic images and data is swooshed into place with a wave of the hand -- is not a far cry from the "spatial operating environment" that engineers such as Los Angeles-based Oblong Industries are working to perfect. There was also the mysterious-sounding Project Natal by Microsoft (Stock Quote: MSFT), the code name for what would be the gesture-operated interface of the Kinect.

In the movie, cars can pilot themselves. In the real world, an added feature gaining popularity allows the vehicle to park itself. More amazing is experimental technology spearheaded by Google (Stock Quote: GOOG) that provides fully automated, self-driving cars.

We may not have "pre-crime" mutants having visions of break-ins to come, but IBM's Blue Crime Reduction Utilizing Statistical History software is already deployed in police departments across the country as a predictive analysis tool for crime hot spots.

The "sick stick" used by police to immobilize suspects has a real life counterpart used by some police departments to create nausea via discombobulating light and sound. Newspapers printed on flexible, electronic screens? Check. Retina scans to verify ID? Check. Billboards and signs giving you personalized shopping advice? Not yet, but they are working on it.

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