12 Tech Inventions From Star Wars That Already Exist Today

9. Holography

Interestingly, A New Hope's prediction of hologram technology is surprisingly accurate when compared to other works of fiction.

Take Star Trek's holodeck for example; it's exceedingly difficult at the moment for scientists to create 3D holographic imagery that we can touch or pass through. When it comes to simulating a whole room, you're really asking for trouble. There are too many possible angles at which to view something, plus there would be too much interference if the user walked through the lines of sight of the projection devices.

The best we can do at the moment is the likes of the glasses-assisted virtual reality of Die Another Day, where everything is calculated with a computer and projected onto your retinas. This isn't holography though but rather CGI that integrates with the real world. Creating a real 3D environment you can play with without glasses isn't really doable.

However, what Star Wars depicted was a single 3D image sitting by itself in the middle of the room. It's fair to assume that if anyone crossed in front of R2-D2's beam or stuck their hand into the projected image, it might have ended up a garbled mess. This is actually pretty similar to current 3D holograms.

Dozens of holography companies are well on the way to perfecting the technology required to create hovering 3D images that can be viewed from all angles and rotated remotely. Again, try to get up close and touch the image and you're going to create problems but, as far as Star Wars holography is concerned, it basically exists.

That said, the amount of tech that you have to rig up to get it going is kind of insane. You might not fit it into a robot the size of a waste paper bin just yet.