The hoverboard, thumbprint currency, the Cubs winning the World Series and flying cars. These are four predictions for the year 2015 made when Back to the Future: Part II made its debut in 1989.

While it may still be possible (but not likely) for the Cubs to win a World Series, it does not look like flying cars or hoverboards will be on the market any time soon.

So why were the predictions made for our world so far off? Of course, Hollywood productions do not always get the facts straight, but in actuality, the reason flying cars are not seen zooming down Green Street today is not that scientists don’t have the technology, but just that they would be incredibly inefficient.

“The only reason we don’t have flying cars is the power requirement,” said Mark Hasegawa-Johnson, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. “It turns out it requires a tremendous amount of energy to keep a car in the air, and we just don’t have that much energy to spare.”

If solar power becomes cheaper, that might solve that problem, unless cheap wind power or artificial gasoline solve it first.

“If energy was cheap and we had unlimited solar energy or unlimited wind powers, then why not drive around in flying cars?” he said. “We have the technology to do that right now, we just don’t have the energy to do it.”

The issue of energy will be a main concern in the coming years, far ahead of developing flying cars.

“There will be a need for a lot more wind energy and a lot more solar, and whatever else we can come up with,” said Jont Allen, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. “But that won’t be enough.”

According to Hasegawa-Johnson, in the future we can expect to see more pumped water technology being used as an energy resource.

“Pumped water actually is the storage of energy by pumping water uphill and then releasing it as hydroelectric energy downhill,” he said. “It currently stores more energy than batteries worldwide.”

In addition to changing energy sources to power cars, in the coming years it is predicted that cars will feature monitoring devices that can assess everything from driving habits through monitoring speeds, to automatically recording accidents.

“There would be devices installed into cars that can be used to record accidents,” said Roxana Girju, associate professor of linguistics. “These censors can send a report of how exactly the accident happened and how the cars collided. There will be this kind of interaction between insurance companies and their clients.”

Insurance companies will be able to use these devices to reward safe drivers and increase the rates of reckless drivers, hopefully making the roads safer in the future.

Another technological advancement that has the potential to become a reality in the near future is more use of apps on mobile phones. One feature that is currently in development is an improved method of language translation, an important feature for world travel and international business.

“There will be more efficient and effective language technologies and more information translations on the go using smart phones,” Girju said. “People will use cameras to take picture of text to translate.”

This app puts a traveler not familiar with the country’s language at ease, making it easier to maneuver around foreign cities.

“If you go to China and don’t speak the language, you can take a picture and the phone can translate it for you on the spot,” she said. “It will be on more of a mass level in the future.”

In addition to mobile phone apps, there is no shortage in the development of new consumer products. The list of new technologies expected to be part of our lives in the next few years are endless.

Hundreds of new technologies were presented this past week at the 2012 International CES, the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow. The event hosts numerous companies — from Microsoft to Sony — that present the upcoming technology of the future. From computer cloud capabilities, to ultra-thin laptops, to 3D TVs, the list goes on.

According to Girju’s predictions, computers will continue to get smaller and desktops will one day disappear all together. Touch screens will soon become the norm and one day, even touch screens will end as computers change to a “hover screen.”

“The idea is that is to be used as a virtual visualization,” she said. “You wave the hand and operations will occur on the screen without even needing to touch it.”

This was one of the products shown at this year’s CES show, and will change the way that consumer use computers.

Though flying cars will not fill the skies and hoverboards will not be scribbled on holiday wish lists any time soon, consumers can still expect to see technology rapidly advance beyond what could have been predicted in a Hollywood film.