By Wired StaffEmail Author
Released 10 years ago today, Minority Report served up a captivating and thoroughly convincing look at what the future might hold. But how well has the film's bold vision aged?
Wired took at look at 10 key technologies from the film — which built on concepts dreamed up during an "idea summit" of tech thinkers convened by director Steven Spielberg — to compare the decade-old science fiction to today's reality.
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Iris Recognition
In Minority Report: Devices that scan the distinctive features in the iris — the colored portion of the eye — are everywhere in Minority Report. They're used in place of security badges and IDs, and they help billboards tailor ads directly at you as you pass by. Also, spiderbots shuffle around scanning irises in search of suspects.
The reality today: The ID system portrayed in the movie works because the government has every citizen's iris on file, and that is eminently plausible, says Patrick Grother of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the government agency that oversees biometrics. India has already scanned the eyeballs of 150 million citizen enrollees, and border control agencies around the world use the technology. Preregistered travelers can move in and out of the United Kingdom, cross the US-Canadian border, and navigate the Middle East without a passport as long as their irises are approved. Recent advances — better compression algorithms that allow iris data to traverse networks faster, cameras that can scan irises from up to 9 feet away while people are in motion — will only expand the iris scanning's reach. —Amber Williams
Self-Driving Cars
In Minority Report: In the world of 2054, a symphony of self-driving cars zoom down the sides of sheer skyscrapers and onto horizontal highways and back. The vehicles form a system dubbed "individual mass transportation," where the wealthy can get from their deluxe penthouses to their destinations without brushing elbows with the lower classes living below. "The beauty is that your own vehicle is sort of an extension of your taste and the design of your apartment," says Harald Belker, the conceptual auto designer for the film. The vehicles are voice-activated and run using magnetic levitation, a technology that lets vehicles float inches above a surface.
The reality today: Maglev systems are already employed in a handful of railways across the globe, delivering speeds up to 361 mph. The self-driving part of Minority Report's vision is also practically here, as Wired's 20.02 cover feature detailed. Google's got its own roving band of driverless vehicles that navigate city streets, pedestrians and red-lights, and can hit up to 75 mph while merging between lanes on highways. BMW, VW and Toyota have their own robot-car projects as well. A wide-scale system like the one in the film would require huge outlays for infrastructure. "If there isn't any way to modernize the transportation system, we'll never make any progress," Belker says. —Christina Bonnington
Spiderbots
In Minority Report: A squadron of tiny, eight-legged bots scampers autonomously through a flophouse, using an array of on-board sensors — including, memorably, iris scanners — to identify residents and relay that information to the authorities.
The reality today: Say hello to your robotic insect overlords. The US military (with the help of British Aerospace) has been developing a fleet of insect robots made specifically for reconnaissance missions. The goal is to equip soldiers with an extra pair of eyes in urban environments and other potentially hostile areas. There are nonmilitary applications, too: A team of spiderbots was recently deployed inside of Mount St. Helens. Each was equipped with a seismometer for detecting earthquakes, an infrared sensor to detect heat from volcanic explosions, a sensor to detect ash and a global positioning system to sense the ground bulging and pinpoint the exact location of seismic activity. —Bryan Gardiner
Predictive Policing
In Minority Report: A trio of psychic precogs lie partially submerged in what looks like the world's least enjoyable hot tub, their brains hooked up to police computers that display their visions of crimes yet to happen. From there, the cops can race out and arrest the bad guys before they break the law. Or, as Tom Cruise's character puts it to one would-be wife-stabber, "Under the authority of the District of Columbia Pre-Crime Division, I'm placing you under arrest for the future murder of Sarah Marx."
The reality today: Predictive policing has become a buzzphrase in the last 10 years, and a handful of police departments have actually opened units and programs that aim to take a pre-emptive bite out of crime. In Los Angeles, police use an algorithm that analyzes seven years of data to predict where and when burglaries, auto thefts and car break-ins are most likely to occur. Officers on patrol then pay particular attention to those "hot spots." Not as cool as psychic-based murder prediction, sure, but in the first few months of this year, these crimes are already down by 22 percent, translating to about 153 property crimes prevented.
Predictive policing programs in Santa Cruz, Memphis and Chicago have seen similar results — and Chicago has even been able to predict more violent crimes, like shootings. Unlike the movie, though, it's not about slapping handcuffs on a would-be perpetrator before a crime has been committed. "It's just about disruption," says Captain Sean Malinowski of the LAPD. "You go out there and prevent a crime from happening through your presence. There's still the Constitution." —Elise Craig
3-D Holograms
In Minority Report: Tom Cruise converts cherished home videos into a 3-D hologram. His character is able to look at projected images of his wife and missing son. As he moves around, he sees them from different angles.
The reality today: Approximations of holograms have been around since the 19th century — in the form of images projected on glass. (The much-tweeted performance by the long-dead Tupac at Coachella in April was a high-tech example.) But the kind of 3-D tech depicted in Minority Report has what's called dimensionality — when viewed from different points of view, different aspects are visible. (Think Princess Leia's "Help me ObiWan, you're our only hope" projection in Star Wars.) That's called motion parallax, and no one has figured out how to create it. Minority Report brainstorming session participant Neil Gershenfeld, head of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, says we'll soon see more and more realistic onscreen 3-D, thanks to lenticular displays that eliminate the need for 3-D glasses, plus head-tracking systems that know exactly where our eyes are in relation to the image being generated. "It's relatively easy to make a holographic TV screen," he says. "The problem with Star Wars-style 3-D projected in mid-air is that the physics don't work." —Bryan Gardiner
Sick Sticks
In Minority Report: In 2054, police descend on uncooperative civilians wielding a special sort of baton called a sick stick, which had the almost magical ability to "make you lose control of your bowels and/or throw up," says brainstorm participant Shaun Jones, a technology consultant and former director of Darpa's Unconventional Countermeasures Program. Nothing like instantaneously expelling the contents of your digestive tract to tame rebellious impulses.
The reality today: Sick sticks don't exist yet, but nonlethal weapon development is in full swing, Jones says. At the Department of Defense, scientists are working on machines that can direct beams of sound that impair hearing and emit electromagnetic waves that generate uncomfortable heat. New nonlethal weapons are making their way into cities, too: Police departments in Southern California are testing a weapon that incapacitates its target with superbright lights that strobe at different wavelengths. Funded by the Department of Homeland Security and developed at Intelligent Optical Systems in Torrance, California, the LED Incapacitator 3 looks like a standard flashlight, but its light show causes temporary blindness and disorientation. One of its inventors, Vladimir Rubtsov, says it's a good substitute for the taser and can be used for riot control or against unruly drunks heading for their cars. —Amber Williams
Personalized Billboards/Ads
In Minority Report: Wherever he goes, Anderton is tracked by cameras and biometric sensors and bombarded with intrusive personalized ads. "The whole idea was that the ads would not only recognize you, but also your state of mind," says Jeff Boortz, a consultant on the film. Deducing that stressed-out Anderton needs a relaxing break, he is offered targeted products like an Amex card and a Guinness.
The reality today: Amazon and Google have long been reading our searches and helpfully suggesting products we might like to buy. DVRs know your taste in police procedurals and when you like to watch them. NEC is experimenting with dynamic ads that target specific shopper characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity and age. Using billboards equipped with a camera and facial-recognition software, the company is able to target a given message with a great degree of specificity. Not far over the horizon: facial recognition cameras in malls and other public places that can guess age and gender, then flash demographically targeted ads as you pass by. Can retina-recognition devices be far behind? —Bryan Gardiner
Gestural Interface
In Minority Report: Tom Cruise waves his gloved hands around to manipulate objects on a giant screen in front of him. Every gesture is registered, allowing him to rifle through files, expand and contract windows, and select onscreen objects. Finally: an alternative to the mouse and keyboard paradigm. "To build a genuinely new user interface, you have to build it from the ground up, like what the original Mac did in the early '80s," says John Underkoffler, chief scientist with Oblong and the designer of Minority Report's gestural interface.
The reality today: Gestural interfaces seem to be conquering the world. Most of us pinch and zoom on a daily basis now — but on touchscreens, not in mid-air. But there's also Microsoft's Kinect interface, which uses infrared-light and "Time of Flight" algorithms to pinpoint the position of a person's limbs, kind of like sonar. Microsoft has sold more than 20 million units — which don't even require the gloves used in Minority Report — and plans to build Kinect support into PC operating systems as well. New smart TVs from LG and Samsung use similar technology that lets you adjust the volume and change the channel without a remote. As camera and sensor technology becomes more refined over the next decade, we'll eventually be able to control personal computing devices with smaller, subtler movements at closer ranges. —Christina Bonnington
E-Newspapers
In Minority Report: News is delivered on flexible e-paper screens that update in real time and show video. And cheap screens take media beyond the news sphere: Cloying cartoon animals come to life on the sides of a cereal box, and they dance around with glee as Cruise gobbles the cereal in his bowl. (It looks as annoying as it sounds.)
The reality today: Newspapers, magazines and books are migrating to Kindle and iPad screens, but flexible e-paper remains mostly in the lab. Korean electronics giant LG has begun producing a flexible, plastic e-paper display that could hit the mainstream within the next five years. The current version is 6 inches wide and .7mm thick, but the company has dabbled in 19-inch, newspaper-size versions as well. Samsung is working on a similar flexible display using OLED technology. When flexible displays arrive in earnest — as early as 2015 — look for them to be wrapped around everything from building support columns to coffee mugs, delivering things like headlines, status updates, stock alerts and ads. —Christina Bonnington
Jetpacks
In Minority Report: Cops zip around the sky in personal propulsion systems complete with red and blue lights flashing.
The reality today: Spielberg insisted on including jetpacks in Minority Report because — just guessing here — they make for indelible cinema. But unlike the more plausible bits of futurism in the film, the jetpacks were closer to what was envisioned in Commando Cody serials than to the impractical devices that actually exist. —Amber Williams
