Minority Report director Steven Spielberg actually hired an entire team of MIT researchers to build a scientifically accurate gesture-based interface system that Tom Cruise…

A closer look

Imagine paying a small fortune to futuristic scientists just to invent fancy hand-waving for a movie. That is exactly what happened when Spielberg realized standard keyboards were simply too boring for the year 2054. He brought in genuine MIT researchers to design a user interface that theoretically could exist, leading to the iconic gesture-controlled screens. Ironically, the real-world technology industry spent the next two decades trying to desperately copy a fictional computer interface that was designed purely to look cool on camera.