1) Star Wars
Darth Vader’s black armour was both a life-support suit and an incredibly stylish embodiment of evil. Ahead of its time in every way, especially given it all happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
2) James Bond
Before smartphones answered our every need, Bond boasted an impressive array of watches. In the film Moonraker, he escaped using a watch equipped with explosives (an iWatch?) while in Octopussy his Seiko had a tracking device and colour TV screen.
3) RoboCop
Like dear old Darth before him, RoboCop needed his suit for a second chance at life. Part man, part machine – but fully equipped to take on baddies like never before.
4) Minority Report
Many technologies in the 2002 film seem to match modern realities, from iris recognition (Google Glass) to personalised advertising. Sadly, Minority Report-style police jetpacks are yet to be seen in reality.
5) The Terminator
In his mission to track and destroy John Connor, the original Terminator employed a range of Cyberdyne Systems created in embedded technologies including OCR, object recognition, tracking and vision enhancement.
6) Harry Potter
The possibilities offered up by an invisibility cloak seem endless, and US scientists have been working to produce just such a device in the lab, capable of hiding objects at a wide range of light frequencies.
7) The Jetsons
A pioneering cartoon (initially a TV show, and then a movie) which combined cupcake 60s domesticity with futuristic tech.
In sympathy with the contemporary obsession with efficient housework, most of the technology featured in the programme was gadgets and labour-saving devices such as Rosie, the Jetsons' household robot (not wearable tech but very useful tech.)
Rosie does all the housework and some of the parenting. She is a strong authoritarian and occasionally dispenses pills to the family.
So there you have it. But let's not forget The Hoff as Michael Knight, who could communicate with Kitt in Knight Rider. That's smart technology.
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