Go, Go Gadget!

Well with all this talk (and debate) about e-books and the peripheral discussions about the little readers themselves, I've been thinking about gadgetry. . . in a futuristic/science fiction (sci-fi!) sort of way. Sometimes I feel like we've spent the last ten years in technological limbo. . . what have we been doing with our time? Making phones smaller and smaller so that now there is no WAY you're not going to lose that little bugger...it hardly seems productive.

I think of the things that we haven't managed to accomplish yet and have to shake my head. This is the Twenty first century! It's the future now! What have we got to show for it? tiny phones.
Posh.

I want the big three. . . you know what they are, right? guesses? How about:
#1- Get me off this rock! Space travel, warp drive, light speed, call it what you like and I don't care how you go about it. Let's just get on it, okay? I agree 100% with the physicist who said we can't afford to be a one planet species anymore...(that's a paraphrase, and I wish I remembered his name) Let's get on with spreading throughout the galaxy and populating other worlds so that when we send this one down the toilet, well, you get the idea.
#2-No flying cars, no flying cars! This one is Lewis Black's, but I'm borrowing it. The biggest disappointment of the millennium? Where the hell's my hover car?
#3-Beam me what? Teleporters. See above.

sigh.

Aside from the big three, I can think of a few gadgets for sheer entertainment, or general usefulness that I would love to have access to. Replicators come to mind. Usually only when I have to cook, though. Holo-decks. (I'm a writer, I'm supposed to live in a fantasy world...don't judge me.) That sweet gadget from the Fifth Element that does your nail polish. Remember it? The secretary kept popping a finger in the box and it would come out perfectly colored. I think that's my favorite. I mean, I've never done my nails without messing up at least one of them.

In my own fiction I've invented pyramid dimensional travelers (more fantasy than science, I'm afraid) High tech electric Ukulele's, and cigarettes that your doctor would approve of, (the brands are: Harmless and Hazard Free) as well an electronic canvas, or E-sel pad, that uses a stylus stroke in combination with emotional projections to paint.

Still, I haven't stretched so far as calorie free chocolate yet. . . Maybe next book.
SO, dear readers...what are your favorites? Is there a high-tech wonder that you wait impatiently for? What about one you long to invent? Your favorite from fiction/film? You know you want to share, and I would love the comment.

And a robot that does my dishes!
~Frances