Movie-Inspired Technology

Even though it's a ten-year-old movie, Steven Spielberg's Minority Report continues to inspire futurists and user interface designers today. There's a lot of amazing sci-fi tech that the movie imagines, but one scene stands out above the rest. Tom Cruise's character uses this mind-blowing multi-touch holographic non-surface that he dramatically manipulates with nothing more than hand gestures.

Here's the thing—the futuristic user interface in the movie might not be that far away. Touch screens are already well integrated into our lives. And as the computing power behind those screens continues to get more powerful and smaller, a time when our surroundings will be as futuristic as those in Minority Report is within range.

And it's beginning today. The new line of Intel-inspired Ultrabooks™ includes touch screen convertible devices. They're notebooks when you need them, tablets when you want them. Full computing power backs up the intuitive, gestural interface.

Movies and experiential design inspire one another. When The Ultrabook Experience team interviewed the architect Mark Foster Gage, who designed installations for W Hotels Living Rooms as part of the Four Stories short film series and competition, he emphasized one core concept of environmental and user interface design: the great shared project of architects and technologists alike is "moving away from the screen into space."

Here are some other great moments in movie technology that predict what the future of surfaces, design, and technology will hold:

Iron Man
Tony Stark's design lab integrates some of what Minority Report first hinted at, but with Stark's rarified design aesthetic.

The Incredibles
Sure, it's an animated movie. But the concept of combining mid-century modern furniture and architecture with super-futuristic, cartoonish technology integrates design and technology in a unique way.

Star Trek, 2009
The bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise in J.J. Abrams' franchise reboot is replete with touch screen technology. The original Star Trek series introduced the world to kinds of technology like wireless communications, automated doors, and other things we take for granted.

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