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The virtual dressing room has been a bit player in movies as futuristic as Minority Report and as mundane as Clueless, but it hasn't come to your living room — at least not yet. But one company is developing a virtual dressing room that should work with a webcam or Kinect. More »
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Tom Cruise is coming back! He's starring in a fourth Mission Impossible movie this weekend, and he's also set to star in two upcoming science fiction films: Joseph Kosinski's Horizons and the movie version of the Japanese alien-fighting novel All You Need Is Kill. More »
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Mark Coleran, creator of "fantasy user interfaces" for films like The Bourne Ultimatum and Children of Men, is now focusing on solving real-world problems. John Pavlus with Fast Company Design explains. More »
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Concept artist James Clyne began working in video games and then turned his sights towards designing films like Avatar, Transformers, Star Trek, and War of the Worlds. Clyne filled io9 in on his favorite designs and projects. More »
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Warren Manser is a concept art legend — you only have to look at his visually stunning work on Spider-Man, A.I., The Matrix and Minority Report. But one piece of movie concept art he created terrified him. What was it? More »
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The gestural interface that looked so shiny in Minority Report has turned up everywhere since then, and now it's cheap enough that it's in the FBI's war room, on Castle. Allowing Nathan Fillion to have too much fun bursting windows. More »
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Oblong Industries recently unveiled its new "spatial operating environment," a computer interface that lets you pluck, stroke, and shuffle onscreen data with nothing but a pair of gloves. If you've ever wanted to punch the Internet, that day is approaching. More »
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Appliance manufacturer Electrolux recently unveiled designs for the Heart of the Home, a giant touchscreen stove that will grace the next generation's kitchens. Sadly, there's no robotic maid included. More »
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Science fiction is full of dystopias — and they've got the best interior design. These imaginative interiors and sexy architecture are almost enough to make us want to live in the worst possible worlds, just for the decor. More »
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The car's come a long way since Ford started mass production 100 years ago, but science fiction takes transportation even further. Here are six scenarios for the future of driving, and the real-life developments that could make them happen. More »
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More of the cast for Andrew (Wall-E) Stanton's movie version of John Carter of Mars have been revealed, along with new hints of dynastic politics and Martian political intrigue. Spoilers below. More »
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Yesterday, we looked at six characters who seemingly managed to escape virtual prisons. Now, we'll make it an even dozen as we examine another sextet of science fiction heroes that may or may not still be stuck inside their own minds. Spoilers! More »
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If you've always thought "I wish that someone would make a television show out've Minority Report, only with soap stars replacing Tom Cruise," then you may just be interested in new BBC series Paradox. More »
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Two miles ahead, a construction crew is closing down the right lane on a busy stretch of road. A truck stalled on the left shoulder is slowing down drivers who stop to look. In the minivan to your right, a distracted dad is paying more attention to his kids than to the road. Unfortunately, you are aware of none of these things. Wouldn't it be cool if a computer could analyze all that information and warn you of a high risk condition like this? More »
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Science fiction is all about showing us new and startling worlds - and it doesn't hurt to sell a few widgets along the way. Like Eureka, which recently proved that you can save the world using Degree antiperspirant. Or the Sarah Connor Chronicles, which showed on Monday that a certain brand of car is the official vehicle of the anti-robot resistance. Product placement has been a part of science fiction for decades, but it's grown as the genre has become big business. Here's our history of the phenomenon since the beginning. Science fiction helped to invent product placement, with Steven Spielberg's shoehorning of Reese's Pieces into E.T., making them the official candy of penis-fingered growly alien visitors. But that wasn't actually the first instance of product placement in the genre. What was? It's hard to say, but one of the earliest instances was the overexposure of Sugar Puffs cereal in 1966's Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. The movie version of the classic Doctor Who story starred Peter Cushing as the eccentric time-traveler, who visits a ruined future London where the killing-machine Daleks have taken over. There's no food or clean water, and the survivors of the Dalek attacks live in total squalor. But hey... did we mention Sugar Puffs cereal is sugary and delicious? Sugar Puffs helped to finance the movie in exchange for having their posters visible throughout. Also, 2001: A Space Odyssey features prominent references to, and fake ads for, Pan-Am, IBM and Howard Johnson. But those were simply companies that director Stanley Kubrick thought would still be around in a few decades. As far as I can find out, no money actually changed hands - in fact, Kubrick contacted 50 companies and asked them to submit logos and designs for what their products might look like in 40 years. Also this nifty bit of Marlboro promo in a Superman II fight scene predates E.T. by a couple of years. Kneel before our cool, refreshing smokes: But yes, E.T.'s focus on Reese's Pieces may well have been the first high-profile example of product placement in a science fiction movie. The media reported widely that M&Ms had turned down the chance to be in the mega-hit, and Reese's Pieces reaped some extra publicity from all the coverage. The candy's sales spiked 65 percent after the film came out, and kids wrote to Steven Spielberg with fan art that featured Reese's Pieces prominently: But there's also a lot of exposure for Coca-Cola, Coors beer, Speak'n'Spell and Pez candy, among other brands, in the movie. Here are some more screen shots: Around the same time, TV's Knight Rider showed us the way forward in science fictional product placement: people will always want to buy the supercars they see featured on screen. (See below for Transformers and the new K.R.) General Motors gave the show's makers models of the new Trans Am, which they decked out as KITT, and people rushed to buy their own KITTs. But E.T. and Knight Rider were like babies, or maybe monks, compared to the Back To The Future trilogy. Seriously, google "Back To The Future worst product placement" and set aside an hour or two to look at all the lists of the "worst movie product placement of all time" that include the BTTF trilogy. References to Pepsi are jammed into the first two films (like when Marty tries to order a Pepsi Free in 1955), his mom thinks he's named Calvin Klein, and the films ram Nike, Pizza Hut, AT&T, Hasbro and Mattel down your throat. (The DeLorean gets a free pass, because it's actually funny.) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home took advantage of its present-day setting to pimp Michelob beer - the official beer of the Federation - and of course, Scotty gets to know an Apple Macintosh better. The Trek franchise liked that product-placement money so much, Kirk and his crew go camping in Levis jeans in Star Trek V. Meanwhile, Apple got sluttier and sluttier, getting some first-class pimping in Mission Impossible and Independence Day - where a Mac notebook is the key to stopping the alien invaders. And then in Blade Trinity, one character goes to the iTunes music store to assemble a playlist for her ipod, which she listens to while fighting vampires. There's also a nice Apple plug in I Am Legend. Another movie which wins a spot in the product-placement hall of shame is Demolition Man. Sylvester Stallone gets woken up in the future, and finds that Taco Bell/Pizza Hut has won the "franchise wars" and now all restaurants are Pizza Huts: One of the first television series to be accused of shoving consumer items in your face was Babylon 5, which stuck a gigantic Zima sign over the alien boxing ring in the episode "TKO." Series creator J. Michael Straczynski insisted the show got "not a dime" for the Zima plug, and it was just for the lolz. Men In Black got a lot of flak for its relentless pushing of the Ray-Ban Predator 2 sunglasses, which tripled in sales to almost $5 million after the film came out. And Men In Black II is another proud moment for product whoring. An alien intruder arrives on Earth and needs to assume a form to confuse us humans. So of course her/its eye lights on a Victoria's Secret ad: And then there's the famous taxi chase in The Fifth Element, which leads up to the cops getting showered with McDonald's cartons. Good thing they still have Mickey D's in this dystopian future: One trend in the 2000s has been movies featuring fake advertisements for real products as part of the plot, sort of a throwback to 2001. Who helped pioneer this? None other than Steven "Reese's Pieces" Spielberg, who has Tom Cruise walk through a mall full of personalized ads in Minority Report. Michael Bay also crams The Island full of fake ads, including a Chanel ad that stars the woman Scarlet Johnasson was cloned from. I, Robot pushed Converse's Chuck Taylor shoes so much, there's a whole Chuck Taylor web page devoted to the film. (The movie gets four Chucks out of five.) I have blotted this movie out of my memory, but apparently all Will Smith does in it is wave his "antique" Chuck Taylors around and talk about how fast he can run away from the killer robots, thanks to his Chucks. If you saw this movie and liked the shoes, could you buy your own pair? Gosh, I think so! I could be here all day discussing the wealth of car product placement in recent movies. The Lost World: Jurassic Park features a new kind of Mercedes Benz SUV, and Steven "man-whore" Spielberg lovingly, frames a shot so you can see the Mercedes logo really clearly. That Steven. The Matrix Reloaded is such a great Cadillac ad, with its freeway chase, that the DVD even has a featurette about the product placement. Terminator 3 is brought to you by Lexus and Toyota. I Am Legend is one big ad for the Ford Mustang. Transformers is basically built around promoting GM's latest car models, and the second film is already getting buzz around the new Chevy Volt and Corvette models. The Dark Knight is plastered with Ford. We have a new Knight Rider show, which is basically a Ford Mustang infomercial as the car transforms into different Ford models. Fringe is also chock full of Ford. Heroes has had product placement for Sprint, Apple, Dell and other brands, but also especially Nissan. A new growing category of product placement in science fiction, rivaling cars and computers: phones. After all, if you're under attack by aliens, you really need to be able to reach your comrades in a hurry. Hence, Jericho's and Heroes' constant whoring for Sprint, Superman Returns' constant Samsung and Virgin whoring, Cloverfield's Nokia love, etc. etc. It's pretty amazing. Judging from our research, there's been more product placement, and more blatant product placement, in 2008 than in the past few years combined. We could literally spend an entire post just listing all the product placement this year. And it's getting way more blatant, especially on television. As we mentioned above, Sarah Connor Chronicles set a new high-water mark with its hour-long Dodge Ram commercial last week. Smallville devoted an entire episode last spring to Stride gum, and how it can turn you into a superhero. And then there's Eureka, which has apparently been finding ways to feature Degree For Men in every. single. episode. this season, including the one where Degree provides protection from a lethally hot second sun. Where will it end? How much lower can we go? In the interests of ironic dystopian amusement, I can hardly wait to find out. Additional reporting by Katharine Duckett. More »
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Some of the most awesome science fiction machines ever conceived for film, like the turbo-tank AT-ATs from Empire Strikes Back, were inspired by things the concept designers saw every day. You may already know that George Lucas was allegedly inspired to create the AT-ATs by these cargo lifters at the Port of Oakland — but did you know the T-1000 "liquid metal" Terminator was inspired by chocolate fudge? Find out which strangely ordinary items inspired eight of the coolest science fiction machines, and be humbled. More »
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When science fiction decides to get all deep and philosophical, it always comes down to questions of free will. Do we choose our actions, or are they already totally predictable to someone who could glimpse the future? For example, Terminator 3 caused a lot of controversy with an ending that suggests John Connor can't escape his destiny as a post-apocalyptic leader. Are we just puppets of a future history engraved in stone? We settle these debates once and for all, and list the four different types of fate-vs-free-will stories in SF, below. More »
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This alien-looking newspaper from the movie Ultraviolet recently turned up on a movie props site. I love the weird font that screams "Vampire Epidemic!!!" with the three exclamation marks. It's good to know that even in a dark dystopian future where plague victims drink your blood, sober responsible journalism will reign supreme. Here's a roundup of the strangest scifi newspapers. More »
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Now this is one police officer we wouldn't mind pulling over for, and that's not even counting her dangerous curves. Check out the sweet streamlining and attention to detail on that jetpack. Plus she has what looks like Iron Man-esque propulsion units in her fingerless gloves, and a red and blue tipped light-helmet to boot. No idea where she keeps her nightstick, though. Click through for the full image. More »
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Flying cars are dime-a-dozen in science fiction. But they don't all look as cool as Harrison Ford's cop car does in Sid Mead's original concept art. And some of them have cool extras, like voice-controlled color or a built-in ATM . But what you really want to know is, what's the fastest super-car in scifi? We rank them by speed (with a gallery) below. More »
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A genuine casting of Arnie's head from Batman & Robin is just one of the bizarre movie props available on eBay right now. You can also own the robot head of Robin Williams from Bicentennial Man, and the original helmet from the Rocketeer movie. Or if your loved ones are really obsessive, you can get them some even weirder crap. More »
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When 2005's Zathura tried for a retro science fiction feel, this smoking jetpack was a key element. Zathura flopped both critically and at the box office, but it features old-school visual effects from James Cameron buddy Stan Winston, who's currently working on Iron Man's armor. A gallery of cool jetpacks from other movies after the jump. More »
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