Back-to-the-Future Stuff

Five years ago, who could have predicted that in 1991, we'd be dependent on fax machines, ultra-high-S.P.F. suntan lotion and roller blades? Nobody, not even the people who are getting rich off them right now. Forecasting toys is a tricky business. Two years ago, we gave you a peek at a dozen nifty inventions (Future Stuff, Playboy, September 1989), many of them set to rock the world by 1991. The list was as odd as it was imaginative: cars that fly; stereos with concert-hall acoustics; surgically implanted "eye rings" that flatten the cornea and eliminate the need for corrective lenses; toilets that wash, dry and perfume you without toilet paper; soaring sailboards; gyrating exercise machines; and mood bathing suits that change colors with body temperature. While none of these contraptions has yet made its anticipated splash in the market place (have you seen a mood-suited, eye-ringed babe zipping by in a flying Corvette lately?), busy scientific minds continue to forge ahead, undeterred, blueprinting another batch of gadgets for tomorrow.

Featured below is their A list--from boots that put bounce into aerobics to self-parking cars. But before you start snickering, remember how you laughed at your neighbor when he got a CD player and a car phone. Future stuff has a way of sneaking up on you, and before you know it, you're desperate for the next trendy what-chamacallit. This is the new hardware for the soft life. The inventors swear that their innovations will be for sale as early as next year, but we choose to be a little more realistic: Allow four to six years for delivery. But order now.

Exerlopers

Odds: 90 percent

E.T.A.: 1993 (available now by mail order)

Price: $199 per pair

Last year, the people of Pittsburgh got a preview of what will likely be the next physical-fitness craze to hit America. And in the true spirit of the Nineties internationalism, its inventor is a Canadian who emigrated from Russia.

The demonstration occurred at the city's Invention/New Product Exposition, as a zany fellow bounded around the convention hall wearing strange skatelike boots. But instead of wheels or blades, the boots had elliptical soles made of two surfaces bowed in opposite directions. Constructed of flexible plastic, the soles were held together by a central bar that acted as a spring.

The weird runner bounced high and far as he cruised up and down the rows of the inventors' convention. It looked easy, it looked like fun and the guy covered a lot of ground with each bound.

Gregory Lekhtman, of Montreal, is the creator of the revolutionary running boot, which he gave the decidedly American-sounding name the Exerloper.

The inventor of a heart monitor and other health accessories, Lekhtman feels that regular running is too jarring on the joints and skeletal system. "We're running to destroy ourselves!" he says in a thick Russian accent. "Bang your hand on the table! That's not exercise, that's destroying!

"If you are standing in a pair of these," Lekhtman continues, "the elliptical sole won't collapse. It will stay curved. Then, when you start running, the sole flattens and bounces, giving your feet a cushioned landing and send-off."

According to Lekhtman, Exerlopers also provide the wearer with quite a workout. "They are four times more cardiovascular than running," he says, because the amount of energy absorbed in the shock of hitting the surface is recycled back into your routine.

Personal Submarine

Odds: 75 percent

E.T.A.: 1993

Price: $100,000, until mass-produced; then $35,000

Like every other boy who followed the exploits of Jacques Cousteau, Tommy Fury fantasized about going on great underwater adventures. He even imagined building his own submarine.

For some boys, dreams die hard. Fury never let go of his, and now, at the age of 48, the former farmer has U.S. patent number 4,841,896--for the SSSV personal submarine.

SSSV stands for Shallow Sight-seeing Submerging Vehicle. "The main complaint with other small subs," says Fury, "has always been the six-inch porthole. So my SSSV has a transparent top and bottom, giving full visibility above and below. It's unique."

Also unlike other minisubs, the SSSV has its own air supply--just like the big boys--so operators needn't wear an oxygen mask inside the cabin. According to Fury, the sub will carry enough air to last for two days.

The egg-shaped craft is 15 feet long and weighs 8000 pounds. It's easy to operate and can be transported on a regular boat trailer. Tracks on its bottom make it possible to drive the sub off the trailer right into the water.

Designed for two to four, the SSSV can dive to 100 feet, making it the perfect vehicle for fish and flora sight-seeing in clear waters. The vehicle's six battery-powered electric engines, similar to those used on small fishing boats, will keep it moving for eight hours. Buoyancy bags are designed to inflate automatically if the craft goes too deep or an emergency develops.

Fury has also patented a novel ballast system for the sub that uses tanks mounted on winglike struts that swing about and push the SSSV wherever the pilot wants it to go.

The craft is steered by a joy stick, which directs the engines. Although the sub is easier to drive than a car with a manual transmission, operators will have to qualify for a license.

Scrap-heap homes

Odds: 90 percent

E.T.A.: 1993

Price: $40,000 to $1,000,000

A house built of old tires, earth and aluminum cans isn't exactly where you would expect to find a famous actor making his home. Unless, of course, that actor is an ecological advocate who wants to show the world that we can save what we throw away--and then live in it.

The actor is Dennis (Gunsmoke, McCloud) Weaver, and his home is a 9000-square-foot, $1,000,000 structure built into a hill near Telluride, Colorado. The house was constructed using 3000 old tires and 200,000 aluminum cans, and everything inside is run by the sun--including the hot tub and the pump that operates the foyer waterfall.

The house was created by 45-year-old visionary architect Michael Reynolds of Taos, New Mexico, who has built more than 50 of these energy-saving structures, which he calls Earth-Ships.

Nearly 20 years ago, two environmental reports by Walter Cronkite and Charles Kuralt inspired the young Reynolds to create ecologically sound homes. After experimentation, he found that a combination of old tires, cans and earth formed ideal building blocks for his self-sufficient homes.

"The house is like a battery," says Reynolds. "The dense mass of materials--three feet thick--captures and stores energy from either the sun or conventional heat sources."

After a year of warming, Weaver's home holds a constant temperature of 68 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit. The house is not even hooked up to a power line; photovoltaic cells provide the juice for lights.

In the living room, Weaver has a 300-square-foot planter for vegetables and fruit that is irrigated by a system that filters runoff water from five baths and a laundry. "This is a house you don't have to take care of," says Weaver. "It takes care of you."

If you don't have $1,000,000 to spend on a scrap-heap home, you can build one of your own using Reynolds' step-by-step guidebook, EarthShip. The book teaches the ambitious do-it-yourselfer how to build a 2500-square-foot EarthShip for about $40,000, saving as much as 75 percent on the cost of materials. Reynolds expects entire EarthShip communities to spring up around America in the next six years.

Holographic food

Odds: 80 percent

E.T.A.: 1992

Price: Same as regular foods

Imagine seeing a cartoon character dancing inside a giant lollipop or watching little canoes race through your corn flakes every morning. Sure, it sounds more exciting than reading the back of a cereal box, but is the world ready for digestive entertainment?

The folks at the Dimensional Foods Corporation in Boston think so. They're busy developing holograms (those wonderful three-dimensional pictures such as the one on your MasterCard) to be embedded into edibles--everything from standard fare to candy bars to pills. And there will be no harmful additives, the company says.

The actual incorporation of the holograms into the food is simple. Workers at Dimensional mold microscopic ridges onto the surface of foods, or, in the case of lollipops, the ridges are molded into edible film that is then embedded into the candy. Light bouncing off these microscopic ridges behaves the same way as light passing through a prism--it bends, then breaks into patterns of different colors.

The specific process being used by Dimensional Foods was developed by the company's president, Eric Begleiter. The difference between his method and the one used by the credit-card companies is that the ridges of the holograms are cast onto the foods themselves, rather than onto Mylar film.

The self-parking car

Odds: 75 percent

E.T.A.: 1999

Price: N/A

Volkswagen made a big hit at this year's auto show in New York--but not only with its 1991 models. Spectators watched pop-eyed as VW unveiled technology it plans to implement sometime in the next decade: a car that will park itself. Now, this is what the future is supposed to be about.

The technology for automatic parking has already been incorporated into a research vehicle called the Futura, a bubble car with two-plus-two seating, gullwing doors, electronic four-wheel steering and a 1.7-liter, 82-horsepower engine with direct fuel injection. Operation of the self-parking mechanism will be as easy as flicking on the radio. The driver will simply press a button to confirm the maneuver, then sit back while the computerized, sensor-equipped car slips perfectly into the tightest of spaces.

"It was impressive to watch the technology in action," said a reporter who was covering the auto show for a national magazine. "But even more interesting was seeing the satisfied smiles in the crowd. You could tell that this was one invention that would really take off. After all, everyone hates parking."

The nuts and bolts of the technology are fascinating. As the car approaches the space, sensors determine whether or not it's adequate. A display panel then indicates a choice of five maneuvers (forward, back, parallel, straight and tail-wagging). The driver confirms the selection by pushing a button and the automatic parking pilot goes into action.

During the actual parking, the space is constantly scanned by the sensors to register any obstacle fore or aft, as well as proximity to the curb. All the maneuvers have been designed to minimize interference with traffic.

The automatic system also leaves the car in the best possible position for a quick, one-move exit, which is also automatic. However, the driver can interrupt the automatic process and resume control of the car at any time during the maneuver.

The sensors that regulate self-parking can also be used during normal driving to measure distances to cars in front and behind, as well as the proximity to other road obstacles. After determining and evaluating the distances and speed, the electronic system issues a visual warning on the dashboard if trouble is imminent. Volkswagen engineers believe this system may help avert "pile-up" accidents.

More than anything else, it is the advances in four-wheel-steering technology that have enabled VW researchers in Germany to develop the ingenious self-parking system. They aggressively pursued this innovation, because the wedge shape on most new cars, while aerodynamically advantageous, was making it more difficult for drivers to see the extremities of the car while trying to park.

Now, if only someone would come up with the removable fire hydrant....

Airplane modules

Odds: 50 percent

E.T.A.: 2000

Price: N/A

Ever missed a connecting flight or had your luggage end up in Montserrat instead of Montreal? Take heart. There may soon be a better way.

"All of the troubles of air travel can be traced to one root cause," says Albert A. Lupinetti, the chief scientist at the Federal Aviation Administration's Technical Center in Atlantic City. "Airports are overloaded."

Lupinetti's solution--which will eliminate delays, air congestion and scheduling hassles--is the "self-contained travel module." Each unit will hold between ten and 20 passengers and will be outfitted with its own kitchen, bathroom and luggage space. Passengers will board the modules at outposts miles from the airport.

Imagine: You live in Connecticut and plan to fly to Seattle. Your flight leaves from New York's J.F.K. Airport with a change-over in Chicago. Under Lupinetti's plan, you board the "Seattle module" at your local train station. As you sit back and enjoy a drink, the module is transported by train to J.F.K. Airport, loaded onto a conveyor track and then moved directly to the Chicago-bound plane--where it is snapped into place with other modules arriving from New Jersey, Westchester County, Long Island and Upstate New York. When all the modules are fitted snugly to the aircraft, the plane takes off.

In Chicago, your module is disconnected and transported to the Seattle-bound plane, while the other modules are dispersed to their connecting flights. When you arrive in Seattle, you deboard your module with your luggage--which has never left your side.

"The whole objective is to make the system more efficient," says Lupinetti, adding that half-full planes could be fitted with cargo modules. "With a one hundred percent load factor, the system would be more profitable and practical for the airlines. For instance, one airplane could hold modules from many travel companies as well as modules from different airlines. This would enable several companies to make money on one flight."

Lupinetti even envisions a day when specialized modules could be designed to accommodate the traveler's every whim. "You could have a module with a sauna, modules that serve Italian food or modules that are decorated in Early American," he suggests. The one drawback of the system is the cost of initial implementation. Lupinetti won't even hazard a guess.

Liquid sunglasses

Odds: 95 percent

E.T.A.: 1993

Price: N/A

Forget the shades. Lose the visor. Special eyedrops will soon be the best way to keep the sun out of your eyes.

Dr. Neville A. Baron, a New Jersey ophthalmologist, has developed drops that screen out most ultraviolet light. Sounds simple, but with the depletion of the ozone layer and the increasing amount of ultraviolet light passing through it, this is no small invention.

Ordinary sunglasses block out 60 to 95 percent of ultraviolet-A rays, which some doctors believe cause blindness by destroying retinal cells, and 60 to 95 percent of ultraviolet-B rays, which contribute to the formation of cataracts. Dr. Baron's drops, which are chemical compounds also used in the treatment of eye disorders, will knock out 98 percent of the ultraviolet rays.

Another advantage of eyedrops over dark glasses is that you'll be able to see better indoors. Since 40 percent of our exposure to ultraviolet rays occurs inside--from television sets, computer screens and fluorescent lighting--some people will use the drops even when they aren't in the sun.

Clear, colorless and nonirritating, the drops will be effective for as long as four hours. As soon as FDA approval is obtained, Baron's brain child is likely to become as available as suntan lotion.