40 Futuristic Inventions That Most People Wouldn't Believe Exist Right Now

The Vocktail — that’s virtual cocktail — is a clever gizmo that takes plain old water and claims to be able to make it taste like just about anything. The tapering glass is attached to a unit that contains scent cartridges, an air-pump system, and lights that generate varying colors. Different scent mixtures and hues plus electrical pulses on the tongue produce the sensation of taste — in almost any flavor you want.

According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the stark fact is that nearly 4,000 Americans drown in a typical year. So anything that can help decrease that horrifying figure is highly desirable. And that’s where the Dolphin 1 Remote Control Lifebuoy comes in. Looking a bit like the Starship Enterprise, the gadget’s remote-controlled and a rescuer can remain in safety on a boat or ashore as they direct the lifebuoy to the person in trouble. Great idea.

Carelessly discarded plastic water bottles are a significant contributor to pollution. But what if you could carry water around without a bottle? That’s just what these water bubbles can do. The liquid’s contained in an edible film produced from seaweed. And even if you drop the blob, natural decomposition means it’ll disappear in less than two months. We can thank students from Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art for this smart invention.

A robot bird? What’s the point of that? Well in fact these automatons have a crucial role to play in airport safety. Bird strikes can severely damage a plane and even bring it down. But at Canada’s Edmonton International Airport robot birds, designed to mimic predatory hawks, are being used to scare off their flesh and blood cousins. It’s a great non-lethal way to reduce hazards.

The only place you’ll find an invisibility cloak is in J.K. Rowling’s fictional world of Harry Potter. Right? Well no, because some clever scientists at Iowa State University have actually come up with a fabric called meta skin that could one day conceal real-life items. Cover something like a plane with this material, which can halt radio-waves, and it’ll be entirely invisible to radar technology.

How many times have you mislaid your keys, your purse, or your glasses case? If you’re like us, all too often. And it can be extremely frustrating. But this tiny gizmo, the “Mu tag,” is easily fixed onto virtually any item from your dog to your laptop. Then you can track it via your watch or phone. On their Kickstarter fundraising page, the developers say their aim is to help us “live stress free.” Amen to that.

If you’re hiking, running out of water can be a real problem and even dangerous. Perhaps you come across a creek or a lake — but is the water safe to drink? The LifeStraw’s here to solve that conundrum, because it includes a highly effective filter system that can eliminate the vast majority of viruses and bacteria. So you can slake your thirst with confidence.

You’ll no doubt remember the hoverboards in Back to the Future. But that was just a movie. Yet it now seems that we might be on the brink of having these highly desirable boards for real. A firm named Hendo Hover is developing a board that uses a magnetic field to raise it above the ground. Let’s hope these efforts come to fruition sometime soon.

What if you could wear a necklace with a pendant that could take the spoken word and turn it into text? That’d be neat, to say the least. Well, a company called Senstone’s developed just such a wonder. And not only can the voice recorder turn speech into text, it can also do so for 19 different languages.

So in the morning, your alarm clock goes off. You reach over to the bedside table and deactivate it. Then you turn over and immediately fall back into a deep slumber. An experience all too common for many of us. But this alarm, the Ruggie, requires you to move onto a mat to stop it. That means, of course, that you’ve had to get out of bed. Now you’re actually up and unlikely to go back to sleep. Genius!

Other companies have developed smart spectacles, but Vue claims that its are a class above. With these glasses you can play music, take phone-calls, monitor your calorie intake, and measure how far you’ve walked. They also have a feature that helps you to find them when you’ve absentmindedly mislaid your pair. But the point is they resemble everyday spectacles. Oh, and they’re also a visual aid.

Okay, electric toothbrushes are nothing new. But Amabrush is undeniably different. It actually fits in your mouth kind of like a gum shield. And once it’s in place, you can operate it using Bluetooth with your phone. Then the tooth cleaner does all the work for you — and it gives a thorough clean in just 10 seconds so you can get on with your busy day.

Now here’s something you never knew you needed: a pancake printer called PancakeBot. If you’ve been making pancakes in the traditional circular shape, this gadget will really expand your horizons. Because it can make your pancake in any form you like. A bird, a plane, a portrait of your spouse. The only limit is your imagination. But it’s worth noting, as the manufacturer point out, that batter is not included.

You might quite reasonably ask why you’d want the color of your food or drink packaging to change. Well, there’s a good answer. A firm called Braskem has developed packaging that alters its hue when the contents have gone past their best-by date. This material detects pH readings that indicate freshness — or lack of it. So when the package decides that your product is past its best, you’ll know.

Glancing at you satnav can be a dangerous distraction when you’re driving. But Carloudy picks up navigation information from any device and projects it onto your windshield right in front of you. It’s operated using your own voice, so your hands stay firmly on the wheel. We’d have to ask, though: is that really safer? Time will tell.

We’re already used to having gigantic TVs in our houses in lieu of actually going to a picture house to watch the latest movie releases. But what if you could carry a cinema around with you in your pocket? That’s what the Nebula Capsule’s makers claim you can do. This little cylinder, just a few inches tall, is actually a streaming device, a projector, and a speaker combined. All you need is a flat surface to show your movie on at a size of up to 100 inches.

Earwax is a pain. Getting rid of it’s a chore. But what if there were a gadget that could perform the task efficiently and quickly? Well, the good news is that there is such a gizmo, and it’s called EarScope. It’s basically a hand-held viewer with a cable leading to a tiny camera. Plus there’s what the company calls a “reusable ear spoon” to get the gunk out. Apparently, you can use the device on other parts of your anatomy as well. The mind boggles.

Soylent’s a powdered food substitute that you make into a drink. It claims to be able to replace conventional food entirely. But you’d have to wonder what they were thinking about when they named this product. In the 1973 dystopian sci-fi movie Soylent Green, the substance that gives the film its title was a type of processed food made from deceased humans. Hardly appetizing.

Lockheed Martin’s working on a hydraulic exoskeleton designed to give an ordinary mortal super-human strength. The Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC — get it?) would enable a soldier to carry as much as 200 pounds of equipment with a minimum of effort. That’ll be a real boon on the battlefield, especially in rough terrain.

If you’re cycling on busy roads, you want to be highly visible to the drivers you’re sharing the space with, especially after sunset. And the Lumos bike helmet’s designed to make you stand out as much as possible. The headgear has a white light mounted to the front and a red light to the rear. Plus it has indicator lights at the sides to show you’re planning to turn left or right. There are even brake lights as well, and the wireless control sits conveniently on your handle-bars.

Why would scientists in Switzerland go to the trouble of developing a robot fish? Well, they were motivated by the pursuit of scientific knowledge. Their fish automaton was modeled on a tiddler of a species, the zebrafish. And the tiny machine has actually swum with real fish, which apparently viewed it as a member of their shoal. For the researchers, this is a unique method of discovering more about piscine behavior.

Drones are hardly anything new, but the app Drone Shark is a groundbreaking innovation. Developed by an Australian named Jason Iggleden, it controls a drone as it looks down on surfers and can warn them when sharks are coming uncomfortably close, allowing those at risk to take evasive action. The device is equipped with loudspeakers so that a lifeguard can tip the wink to surfers or swimmers below.

Electric skateboards are a great way to zoom around. But with their small wheels, they really need a paved surface. Anything that’s on the rough side is likely to defeat them, or at best give a decidedly uncomfortable ride. But the Track 1’s specifically designed to take you off-road. The secret is the tracked rear unit and the oversize front wheels, which can handle rough terrain a whole lot better than standard boards.

Recycling. We know we have to do it, but it can be a tedious chore to say the least. So what if there was a gadget that’d take the toil out of recycling but leave your conscience clear? That’s the claim made by the makers of Bin-e. It’s designed to separate garbage from recyclable materials using smart sensors. Then it puts different reusable items into appropriate categories. Clever!

We present the LocTote. On first inspection, it really isn’t very exciting — seemingly just the kind of small backpack that you might well see every day. But this bag has a characteristic that truly makes it stand out from the crowd. The lockable item’s made from an incredibly durable material, so any thief who tries to slice through the fabric is very likely to end up with a blunt blade.

Promoted by Elon Musk, this futuristic invention is called the Hyperloop. The plan’s to develop a train that’d travel entirely within cylinders that massively reduce friction. It’s said that such a system could attain speeds of up to 600 mph, quite a bit faster than a conventional railroad. This means that you could get from New York City to Washington, D.C., in under a half-hour.

This transport concept comes from the North Indian city of Gurgaon. Suspended from static lines, these pod taxis will run above the busy city roads. Each pod can hold up to six people and will travel the routes continuously at high speeds, with frequent drop-off and pick-up points. And the beauty is that this system requires no drivers.

Litter on the streets and highways is a bane of modern life. Discarded candy wrappers, chip bags, and other carelessly cast-off trash are an eyesore as well as harmful to the environment. But here’s an idea: what if wrappers were edible? Then you wouldn’t throw them away — you’d eat them. The Department of Agriculture’s working on just such an innovation, researching the possible use of casein, which can be extracted from milk.

Polluted air’s a real problem in America and around the world. But what if you could filter the pollutants out of the atmosphere and actually find a use for them? That’s just what scientists at MIT’s Media Lab were working on a few years ago: converting soot in the air into ink. And the ink, developed by Graviky Labs, has since been used by various artists.

Shampoo, body wash, conditioner — they all come in plastic bottles. That, of course, inevitably means plastic waste, much of which can’t be recycled. So a company named Nohbo has come up with an ingenious solution. It makes personal hygiene products that are packaged in individual portions in a bubble, which is made from a soluble material. So you take it into the shower, the covering dissolves, and you’re left with just the right amount of product for your purpose.

For partially sighted and blind people who use a cane to help them get about, things can become tricky in certain situations. Imagine this: you’ve got your cane in one hand, luggage in another, and you’re also trying to use your smartphone. Not enough hands! But there’s a neat solution. It’s called WeWalk, and it’s a cane that can sense obstacles in a user’s path. And crucially, it can connect to a map app on your phone, leaving a free hand.

Copy & Paste’s a hand-held device, and it’s one of those gadgets that might make you wonder how you ever managed without it. With this gizmo you can scan an image or a body of text. But the amazing feature is the ability of the Copy & Paste to then print out the scanned image onto paper. Meaning you can leave the photocopier and printer in the office, yet still have their functionality.

There might be all kinds of reasons why you don’t want to swap out your old-fashioned wristwatch for a modern smartwatch. Emotional attachments or aesthetics might be factors. But with the Smart Buckle, you can keep your old watch and still enjoy the benefits of a smartwatch. You fit the smart buckle and strap to your existing watch and pair it with your phone via Bluetooth.

Roads and sidewalks are essential for getting around, but they serve just that single purpose. What if we could use them for something else entirely, though? Why not fit these extensive flat surfaces with solar panels? That’s exactly what a company called Solar Roadways plans to do by sandwiching solar wafers between layers of ultra-tough Gorilla Glass. So now, even if a roadway’s empty, it can still be performing a highly useful task: electricity generation.

Think of hydroelectric power and massive projects such as the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River probably come to mind. But what if you could generate electricity with water using a system you can carry around with you? Time to meet the Enomad Uno. It’s a small rotor that can charge a battery via a USB connection. All you need is a body of water with enough flow to turn the rotor. Alternatively, you can drag the device at the rear of a craft. Nifty!

We don’t mean a whiskered rodent, we’re talking about the mouse you use with your computer. The Padrone Ring’s a device that replaces the traditional mouse. It’s actually a ring you wear on your finger, and there are plenty of sizes, so there should be one to fit you. The ring communicates with your computer via Bluetooth, and simply waggling and tapping your finger operates the device.

Fancy dashing around at high speed just a few feet above the ground — or the waves? If so, you should take a serious look at the Hoversurf S3 quadcopter. The 250-pound vehicle can reach speeds of up to 60 mph and the makers suggest an ideal altitude of 5 feet. Looks like the perfect ride for those who want to skim above gridlocked traffic.

This smart robot has one purpose in life: to exterminate bacteria. Automatons that can do your vacuum cleaning have been around for a while, and the Cleansebot looks rather like one of those. But it has a killer feature, literally. It’s designed to run over your bedding and terminate any unpleasant bacteria it finds with extreme prejudice.

Designed for children aged from three to seven, this little robot certainly has the cute looks calculated to appeal to kids. But it’s more than just an amusing toy — the Roybi Robot’s actually a teacher. Its curriculum includes STEM and language lessons that are tailored to respond to your individual child. And it isn’t all hard slog — the robot can do everything from singing to telling tales.

The Genny, built by an Israeli outfit called Watergen, resembles a standard water cooler. But as you can see, there’s no container of H2O sitting atop it. That’s because this machine actually creates water — out of thin air. It extracts moisture from the atmosphere and the resulting liquid collected is perfectly safe to drink. The Genny can output up to seven gallons of water every 24 hours and is also able to run off solar power.