Aerospace innovators bring Star Wars technologies to light

Today is the day. Star Wars: The Force Awakens -- the much-anticipated, long-awaited next installment in Disney's Star Wars franchise -- opens in theaters today. Sci-fi fans everywhere are lining up to see some of their favorite characters, some eye-catching computer graphics imagery (CGI), and what futuristic technologies Director J.J. Abrams and the entire team behind this new chapter of the Star Wars story envisioned and brought to life.

What technologies featured in previous Star Wars films have come to fruition? This was the question that Sensuron Applications Engineer Alex Tongue set out to answer in his latest blog: http://www.sensuron.com/industry-news/seven-star-wars-technologies-that-exist-today/.

PC World's Glenn McDonald takes it a step further, listing 10 Star Wars technologies on the cusp: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3016652/hardware/10-star-wars-technologies-on-the-brink-of-becoming-reality.html

A quick Google search produces myriad other comparisons of Star Wars innovations vs. real-world technologies in use today: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=star+wars+technologies

Among those mentioned are:

Vertical take off and landing (VTOL) vehicles

Robots

Laser weapons

Prothetics

Holograms

Darth Vader image above courtesy Stefano Buttafoco / Shutterstock.com.