(Akiit.com) Star Trek is often said to have anticipated technological advances long before the products actually existed. Items such as the iPad or smartphone are believed to have been inspired equipment in Star Trek. The same might be true for other sci-fi series and movies, but there are some things that don’t exist yet (teleportation I’m looking at you). However, here are a few things from science fiction that actually exist.
3D Printers
Who would have thought 10 years ago that you could tell a printer to build you basically anything you want. It felt like the realms of science fiction even as it was being distributed around the world. Now though you can pick up a 3D printer for relatively cheap 
(considering what it can do) and with a little technical know-how you can print yourself anything from a guitar to a soap holder. The sky is pretty much the limit when it comes to making things through a 3D printer, and as long as you can design, then you can probably get it printed. This technology is fantastic and if you were to show it to people from the early 1900’s they would probably think you were some kind of super-advanced alien species here to conquer the earth.
Planes
If you thought that being able to create aircraft that can fly through the air at blistering speeds was impressive, then your world will be shaken when you are told that pilotless planes exist. These planes are still in their prototype stage, but they are fully automated vehicles. These are far more than big drones, and in fact, there is a semi-private Swiss charter that you can take which is completely pilotless. There is still aways to go before this is commonplace for passenger airlines, but it is the future. Pull straight from science fiction and immensely impressive we are taking people out of the driver’s seat in all kinds of types of transport from cars to trains and buses. Taking away the human element might make things safer, but I think I’ll miss the calmly confident voice of the pilot telling us we are coming in to land. Hopefully, they won’t use a robot voice like Siri and instead customize it with celebrity voices instead. It would be quite fun to have Jeff Goldblum take you safely to your destination.
Robots
I’m sure we’ve all seen how ridiculous some robots look and watched them fall over trying to climb stairs or kick a ball, but they are definitely coming along and will soon be a major part of our world. This is again pulled from science fiction; it would just be nice if they didn’t try to take over the world. If we can make the robots able to kick balls and then make them simultaneously nice, that would be great. Imagine taking a fully functioning robot to get your shopping with you or having one help around the house? You can decide if this is stepping into Channel 4’s Humans TV series territory or if we’ll enter a utopian culture.
Staf Writer; Carl Hall