10 Sci-Fi Gadgets That Inspired Real Inventions
3. Digital Billboards
In recent years, digital billboards have blazed across our cities, along our roads and into our shopping centres and underground train stations. Before much time has passed, they begin to seem unremarkable. However, ten or so years ago they were the stuff of science fiction.
Predicted as a huge and everpresent reminder of the capitalism that drove the dystopian setting of Blade Runner and also appearing prominently in the city-planet of Coruscant in the Star Wars prequels, the idea of gigantic and light-polluting adverts dominating our cities seemed overpowering and, well, just too money-hungry. That feeling doesn't seem to have put off the advertisers of the 21st Century, however, because as soon as the technology became available, their popularity in reality boomed.
They don't yet quite cover the side of a skyscraper, but once again this tech has become real far sooner than many would ever have expected.