007 James Bond techno gadgets: Which are real today?
By Jamey Heary,
Network World |
Nov 12, 2008 12:00 AM
PT
We love 007 gadgets and we've always wanted to be able to own some of them. Here are our top 7 (007 -- get it?) gadgets from classic Bond movies. Some of the technology is actually available today. Other gadgets are being developed by various researchers and sadly others are not yet real at all. View Jamey Heary's full Bond gadgets blog post for more information on these technologies including which ones you can buy today.
Die Another Day (the one with Halle Berry as the Bond girl) was criticized for throwing too much light on gadgets and special effects, with the plot being neglected, according to Wikipedia . But aren't gadgets and special effects the reasons we watch Bond movies? Our favorite is the compact underwater rebreather. MIT mathematicians are researching external lungs, so perhaps we'll all have a compact underwater rebreather one day. Read more about the project here .
An electronic door code breaker was used by 006 in the movie. It fits onto a keypad electronic door, cracks the combo, and displays the results on the screen. Read more about the project here .
Golden Eye gets our vote again with Q's leg cast that conceals a rocket launcher. There are examples of such gadgets available today.
Goldfinger is the one that really started the 007 gadget craze. The audiences loved it so much that producers have added in gadgets ever since. This gadget is actually two gadgets, a large and a small homing device. This was cutting edge tech in 1964, we take it for granted today with GPS devices. Read more about the project here .
This Seiko watch printed out urgent messages from MI6 on a ticker tape. The technology exists today to duplicate Bond's ticker watch, but why do it? Read about the world's smallest wireless mobile printer.
The movie called this a "3D identigraph," a facial recognition scanner used by Q and 007 to find the bad guy. We love the old school graphics. Read examples of gadgets in this area.
We all wish we had a pair of these suckers. X-Ray glasses that perform just like Superman's eyes. They are able to see through clothes, walls and other obstructions. Bond uses them in the movie to see the guns the casino women are packing. Read here about the Backscatter X-ray machines proposed for use in airport screening.
How's that for 7 of the best 007 gadgets of all time? The next James Bond installment, Quantum of Solace , opens Nov. 14. See you at the movies!
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