Next year will mark the year of the setting of Back to the Future Part II. Back to the Future Part II was released in 1989, so the writers of the movie did their best to predict what the world and technology would be like 26 years in the future.

If you have seen the film like I have, you would know that they made many predictions on how technology would change or what technology would be invented in the future. These predictions included hover cars, hover boards, self-adjusting and drying clothes, automatic dog walkers, bionic implants, videophones and so on. Some of the devices have since been invented (Skype–video telephone, Google Glass–video glasses, digital billboards–holobillboards). Most of the devices are yet to be invented and come to life, but that will never stop the world from trying to predict what technology and the world will be like in the future.

I recently came across an article that has tried to predict 10 devices that will apparently change our lives in the future. These devices are: an umbrella that forecasts the weather, a house that transforms on command, a bin that orders groceries, a device that knows when someone looks at your picture, a self-pedalling bike, a camera that records your life, a monitoring onesie, a Facebook coffee table, a house that tracks you and a fork that helps you lose weight.

When I first read about these devices, some of them sounded practical, some of them sounded ridiculous and unnecessary and the others were just plain creepy.

The days of taking your umbrella with you “just in case it rains” may be over soon with the weather forecasting umbrella.

The weather forecasting umbrella would be the best on the list and is the most practical. I’m sure everyone has taken their umbrella to work or on a trip “just in case” it rains. With this umbrella, it is connected to the AccuWeather app and tells a person via different coloured lights whether it’s going to rain. This umbrella is already on the market at $125. The fork that helps you lose weight is another good practical one. It works by vibrating when a person is eating too quickly and it calculates how long it takes a person to eat a meal. This is not on the market yet, but I’m sure it will be soon.

The ones that I think are on the more ridiculous scale are the device that knows when someone looks at your picture, the self-pedalling bike, the house that transforms on command and the camera that records your life. I generally think these devices aren’t needed and are over-the-top.

The ones that I think are creepy are the bin that order groceries, the bin is able to do this as it is connected to Amazon. The bin has a tiny camera inside it, which scans barcodes of food/grocery wrappers, and then re-orders these groceries and delivers them. The monitoring onesie, which records a baby’s vital signs via machine-washable sensors inside the material. The Facebook coffee table, which matches keywords from conversations and pulls up relevant photos from a person’s Facebook page. And the house that tracks you by a doorbell that receives data from smartphones and lets you know through the doorbell’s chimes if a loved one is nearby.  I think these devices are creepy as they work through eavesdropping or spying.

The interesting thing about my feelings towards these potential future devices is that they mirror my feelings towards technological devices of yesteryear. I’m sure many of you feel the same way. A good example of my feelings is this video, which shows children trying to use a computer from the 1970s.

Their reaction is hilarious but expected, I would probably react the same way if I was asked to try using that computer. But I think I would also react in a similar way if I was given a self-pedalling bike or a Facebook coffee table to use.

We will always try to predict what our futures and futuristic technology will be like, but at the end of the day only time will tell whether they will come to life or not.