Minority Report: Get the tech today

The new blockbuster from Steven Spielberg, Minority Report, is not just filled with eye-popping special effects and non-stop action, it boasts very cool gear, too.

Set in the year 2054, the movie's creative directors had to create a world in which the tech had to be futuristic and impressive, yet believable. So while you get magnetic levitation cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, you don't get faster-than-light warp drive, time travel, anti-gravity belts or even thinking, talking computers.

We take a look at the state of present-day tech to see how they might lead us to the tomorrow of Minority Report, and also take a light-hearted view at how you can fake the look for just a few bucks.

One thing we did notice, though: While Gap clothing stores, Pepsi, Revo sunglasses and Bvlgari watches seem to be ubiquitous in 2054, for better or worse, the Internet seems to have disappeared, and computers don't run Microsoft Windows.

Magnetic levitation
Playing around with magnets can pay off in a big way.

In-ear mobile phones
The ultra-cool phone in the movie is actually possible to manufacture today--sort of.

Data gloves
Mr Cruise taps away on a keyboard or mouses around? Naah. Action heroes prefer to use body English to talk to their computers.

Holographic storage
If the efforts of a few dogged firms pay off, some day, we may be using transparent chips of plastic to hold terabytes of data, just like the folks in 2054.