Five future technologies we'll have before the track-and-trace app

IT’S almost September, and the government’s world-beating track-and-trace system has still not arrived. What inventions will get here first?

Hoverboots

COVID-19 won’t be able to get within two metres when you glide your way into 2021 in a fancy set of hoverboots! Feel like Future Jesus as you pass over the waters on a cloud of air, then still have to fill in a manual track-and-trace form at the pub.

Portable microwave

While you can’t get close to people on the tube, you’ll be the envy of your fellow passengers with this handheld microwave. Their face masks will muffle their jealous tutting as you tuck into a freshly-warmed burrito, then ask them to all register their names and phone numbers afterwards.

Retinal phone

Slip in a contact lens and your full phone display’s right there in front of you, recording your location, giving you WhatsApp alerts and ordering new Nespresso pods from Amazon every time you blink. Say goodbye to privacy altogether, except it doesn’t work with the government’s app because they didn’t listen when repeatedly told it wouldn’t.

Manned missions to Mars

Escape Covid-19 by blasting off with billionaires to the Isle of Wight of our solar system – Mars! When you get bored and return to Earth, the government will require that you self-isolate for 14 days, but will not be doing tests at spaceports.

Nanotechnology

Sub-molecular machines which can journey into the bloodstream and dismantle coronavirus into its component atoms, as well as create diamonds from dust and food from the dirt. The triumphant announcement is denounced by Matt Hancock as ‘political gamesmanship’ because it overshadows the news their app is in beta testing.

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Greta Thunberg's class had no idea she was gone

GRETA Thunberg has returned to school to find neither her teacher or any of her classmates noticed she was gone.

The climate activist, who made international headlines with a school strike before touring the world and speaking at the UN, arrived back at her old desk to discover nobody knew anything about any of it.

She said: “I turned to Olof in the seat next to me, and said ‘It really is good to be back,’ and he said ‘Uh? What, you been somewhere?’

“I explained about the strike and the trip across the Atlantic and meeting Barack Obama, but he had already stopped listening and was doodling the logos of rock bands on his notebook.

“My other classmate Ebba swore that I had been here the whole year and that she had borrowed a pencil from me. I said no, I had sailed to New York, and she asked if I had visited the M&M Store.

“At breaktime they confronted me and told me stop telling lies. I said it was true and they said so have you stopped global warming then. And I had to say no, I have not.”

Teacher Pekka Hammar said: “Greta is not so close to anyone, but I would notice if she was absent. These stories about thrilling intercontinental catamaran journeys are just made up.”

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