It wasn't too long ago, just a few decades have passed since the 80s when Japan was a topic of conversation of great interest as it was predicted that Tokyo would become some sort of sprawling, neon-drenched, ultra-violent cyberpunk hellscape where powerful private police forces enforced totalitarian law for their corporate overlords. If you've ever seen the movie Johnny Mnemonic, you'll have a faint idea of what I'm describing here...
Fortunately modern day Tokyo remains a very clean, efficient, highly advanced, modern metropolis. Now, just replace those 1980's Tokyo predictions with the city of Dubai. It seems they are pushing full force ahead with the dystopia action described above. What I'm referring to is the fact that their police force recently announced that it’ll be deploying honest to goodness hoverbikes in the near future.
The Dubai police force unveiled a new hoverbike at this year’s Gulf Information Technology Exposition (GITEX). Based on Hoversurf’s Scorpion-3 hoverbike, the battery-powered DPF model has a maximum altitude of five meters (about 16 feet), a top speed of 70 kilometers per hour (roughly 43 miles per hour), and can run for 25 minutes on a full charge.
What an amazing new police cruiser! Who would have known a few years ago that hover technology would be coming into use in 2018!
This meager performance isn’t going to set any streets afire, nor will it help the DPF catch any of Dubai’s notorious street racers, but that’s not what it was designed to do.
The current specifications may not be incredibly impressive but I see a whole new wave of dystopian future movies taking what exists in reality and expanding it to the farthest reaches of the mind into a collection of new, amazing, sci-fi fantasy movies!
The Dubai police have said that the hoverbike will be used as a first-responder vehicle designed to get into hard-to-reach places. The types of places where larger vehicles are unable to access. Another interesting feature is the fact that the DPF hoverbike has the ability to operate as an unmanned drone with a range of about six kilometers. That is impressive!
In my mind, hoverbikes are just a sort of gimmick in their current state but they also represent a clear move towards merging reality with the stuff that sci-fi movies are made from!
It won't be long until hover vehicles and flying cars blot out the sun and ariel superhighways replace their older ground based ancestors!
What do you guys think of this new hoverbike?
Source:
Dubai Becomes Cyberpunk Dystopia, Puts Cops on Hoverbikes - Ride Apart
Image Source:
Ride Apart