Science fiction films often take liberties with the technology
that they display. After all, it is fiction. Though they can
make up essentially whatever they want, technologies still need
to be somewhat realistic to the audience. This influences the
way that sci-fi technology is presented in film, but in turn,
it’s how sci-fi influences technological advances in the real
world. Nathan Shedroff, Chair of the MBA in Design Strategy
Program at California College of the Arts, and Chris Noessel,
Managing Director at Cooper, took it upon themselves to study
the lessons that can be learned from science fiction. They
analyzed a variety of interfaces from all different time periods
of film and television. They discovered that when new
technologies are developed and released to the market, people
already have expectations of how it should work. This is based
upon having already seen a similar, fictional technology. Of
course, there are instances where the technology in film is all
but an impossibility, or at least impr