Twenty-five years after ‘Back to the Future’ convinced an entire generation that we’d soon be able to zoom around the city on wheel-less floating skateboards, it looks like we might finally get our wish: a working hoverboard actually exists. The Hendo Hoverboard, currently blazing past its funding goals on Kickstarter, features four disc-shaped hover engines that create a magnetic field to levitate the board off the ground.

Naturally, there’s a catch: it only works on certain metallic surfaces. The creators are currently using non-ferromagnetic conductor sheet metal, but are working on new compounds that could increase performance while minimizing cost. The magnetic field created by the board levitates it an inch above the ground, offering an ultra-smooth ride that you just can’t get on wheels.

“While one day we expect to have hoverboards that can effortlessly float over any medium (even water!), our current technology requires special types of surfaces,” says Hendo. “Therefore, we need a hoverpark to go with our boards, and have been busy designing a park befitting the awesomeness of our technology.”

In addition to snagging a ‘Whitebox’ developer kit that enables you to play around with the technology yourself, Kickstarter rewards include reserving a brick-sized piece of the eventual Hoverpark with your name engraved onto it. The first 10 production Hendo Hoverboards have already been snagged at $10,000 each.

After all the hoaxes, it’s understandable that people are skeptical – but Gizmodo got to actually give it a try, confirming that it works. Check it out in the video above, and get all the technical details at Kickstarter.

The past sticks around in more ways than people usually think. Three amazing photographers have made the connection from past to present clear through their photography. Jason Powell, Sergey Larenkov, and Irina Werning bridge the time barrier captivatingly.

Sergey Larenkov

(Images via drug-against-war, amazingdata, exploringdystopia, boingboing, englishrussia)

Sergey Larenkov scours archived photographs and then locates the exact position they were taken from. By mixing the modern and past photographs he gives a remarkable glimpse between how similar (and different) locations and people can be.

(Images via rolleiflex, ancathach, en-derin)

Concentrating mostly on times of military struggle, like World War II, Sergey Larenkov brings wartime to the contemporary peaceful streets. Seeing tanks rolling down a highway is much more poignant with the modern connection.

Jason Powell – Looking Into the Past

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Jason Powell’s flickr pool is called “Looking Into the Past” and places old photographs in their modern locations. The changes are often drastic, but more often, surprisingly similar.

(Images via camillereads, designerscouch, fotozup, lawrenceotoole, designloops)

Everything from recent construction to changes in vehicles and fashion are revealed by these portals into the past. There’s something beautiful about viewing an old photograph exactly as the original photographer first saw it.

Irina Werning – Back to the Future

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Irina Werning’s project entitled “Back to the Future” brings people back to childhood photographs, copying every detail. It’s fantastic to be able to see how much some people change in a lifetime, and comforting to see how much remains the same.

(Images via formfiftyfive, the-dot, devin-campbell, love4culture)

The subjects in Irina Werning’s photographs must have had a fantastic time reliving their old photographs. Any before and after shot is intriguing, but it’s especially fun to see how people age (and how locations change) in a lifetime.

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Irina Werning does an excellent job capturing the exact look and feel of the original photograph, including tone and lighting. It would be difficult to exactly recreate most outdated outfits, but Werning manages with an almost uncanny aplomb.