HUVr: Are These Back To The Future Hoverboards Real? Steve Brown Examines
HUVr-Hover boards are they real?
The Internet has been buzzing about a video that’s surfaced featuring people flying on real hover boards like the one from Back To The Future. The video features celebrities like Christopher Lloyd, who played scientist Dr. Emmit Brown in the Back to the Future franchise, Terrell Owens, Tony Hawk, Schollboy Q, and other celebs enjoying themselves & being blown away by the anti gravity technology.
As ridiculously cool as these hoverboard videos are, there are many visual, and scientific signs that the hoverboard tech is bogus. Steve Brown examines:
On the small scale, one of the first things I noticed is the main “HUVr” tech guy in the dark blue shirt is never identified by name, which if he was the CEO or lead product developer, he would clearly be established if the product were real. Some fans in the Youtube comments are quick to point out they can even see a harness under Tony Hawk’s shirt and others in the video.
On the large scale, I hate to tell everyone this, but right now Hoverboard Technology Is Not Yet Possible:
Last year, Discovery.com talked about the feasibility of a hoverboard, comparing it to maglev train technology.
They wrote: “Unlike a maglev train, which floats over a track with magnetized metal coils, a hoverboard would have to be able to float over ordinary ground, aspalt or water which has no conductivity. So a hoverboard probably cannot utilize magnetic power unless there is a series of magnetic coils running directly underneath it.
Another problem with hoverboard technology is power. It takes a huge amount of energy to lift 180 pounds a few feet into the air — and a significant amount to hold that mass there or move it around. The energy and power density requirements are well beyond what’s capable with small lithium-ion batteries. Nuclear fission might just be enough (though the scale and form factor make it unlikely). Fusion, of course, would work — as would cold fusion, probably, however neither tech is likely to come to a hoverboard form factor in our lifetime.
Yet another sign that this is a hoax: one of the videos talks about an iPhone and Android app for HUVr. There’s no app that could power or control something like this. Slashgear.com also notes: “The webpage for the company is protected by(PDS) Protected Domain Services, which in the internet world is the sure sign of a fake company. If the people who own the domain want it to remain anonymous, chances are they just aren’t legit.
Gizmodo reported on a “real” hoverboard back in 2010, but it only worked if nobody stood on it.
Given the budget behind the hoax and the fairly impressive CGI, they probably could have developed a real hoverboard. This is probably viral marketing for some kind of Back to the Future reboot.
Still pretty awesome for displaying possibilities.
This is the closest thing we have to a hoverboard right now.
