8 Examples Of Sci-Fi Tech That Could Become Big Business

Conventional computer storage works bystoring bits as magnetic or optical changes on a physical surface.

Holographic data storage turns this paradigm on its ear by recording information throughout multiple layers of an object, even storing multiple data sets by recording with lights set at different angles.

GE has demonstrated some practical applications of holographic storage, storing 500 GB of data on a Bluray disc.

It's like something out of Star Trek – a computer that sits on your face and overlays useful tidbits of data into your field of vision as you ask for them. It was released to developers in February and will be available to consumers at large in 2014 for between $300 and $500.

The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset that replaces your entire field of vision. The most immediate and obvious applications here are for games. Who wouldn't want to quite literally step into and run around inside his or her favorite game?

Price: $300

Already street legal in a few states in America, Google's driverless car technology is an exciting premise that might soon make the roads as safe as they can possibly be. The idea is that a computer can be far more precise than a human, thus making accidents a thing of the past.

No word on when we can expect to see them for sale, but it's on the way.

Quantum computing uses the weird quirks of the super-small subatomic world to run calculations that are far more complex than conventional computers could handle reasonably. By harnessing small particles that can exist in multiple places at once and move forwards and backwards in time, scientists can make huge progress on tough problems.

Get this – one theory of how a quantum computer works is that it runs calculations in other dimensions.

Terahertz radiation penetrates solids the same way that X-rays do, writes Mashable. Scientists have built a microchip that can send and receive these signals, which means the formerly oversized machinery using terahertz radiation to see into things can be shrunken down to fit inside your smartphone.

Elon Musk's futuristic bobsled could, when realized, zip you around to cover huge distances faster than an airplane can fly.

Of course it's still only hypothetical, but we can imagine, can't we?

Here's a look at the technology that will keep you young and beautiful indefinitely »