Usually, fiction is inspired by reality. However, especially in the case of science fiction, fiction can inspire reality. Those geeks who grew up watching Star Trek are now working at NASA. Those cell phones with their flip open design look an awful lot like Starfleet communicators. The iPhone and iPad are not unlike the touch screen consoles in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Voice recognition has advanced to the point where you can give commands to your car or video game console. The Microsoft Kinect gaming device will respond to voice commands in much the same way that Captain Picard gave commands to the Star Ship Enterprise's computer. All that's left is for us to invent warp drive and figure out how to properly interchange energy and matter.
What technological breakthroughs do you believe were inspired by science fiction? Do you believe the breakthrough was for better or worse?
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