BABY IT’S PRETTY COOL OUTSIDE

Yay, we’re allowed outdoors again… but things might not be quite as they were, says Stuff future-gazer Matthew Griffin

Ah yes, the great outdoors, which we’ve been largely experiencing from the great indoors for the best part of a year.

Whether it’s watching the

Countryfile team visit deepest Buckinghamshire, gasping at wildlife documentaries narrated by Sir David Attenborough (or Snoop Dogg for that matter) or taking a VR tour of the Okavango Delta, nothing can quite beat the magical experience of watching the sun set over the African plains, the Swiss Alps and Milton Keynes on a giant 8K telly while munching on a drone-delivered pizza and necking a genetically engineered beer.

One day, though – and quite soon if BJ, Chris Whitty and co are to be believed – all this will be over, and we’ll be venturing back out into the big bad world to fend off all the wildlife that’s now taken over our towns and cities.

You mean those two-inch-long super rats?

Let’s hope not… but our cities could feel different this summer. For a start, with laws set to be relaxed on the kind of electric scooters and skateboards being offered by the likes of Xiaomi and Segway-ninebot, you might find those empty pop-up cycle lanes suddenly populated by loads of mini leccy vehicles. Then we’ve got hoverboards to consider. Lexus made one, you know – for a marketing stunt – but it actually worked… even though it needed to be cooled to -197°C with liquid nitrogen while levitating, which is not exactly practical. Well, now a group of engineers from the University of Waterloo in Canada have made a working prototype of the board from Back to the Future Part II that uses spinning magnets to hover. The only downside here is that it can only levitate above a conductor such as steel; but hey, we’re getting closer.

A hoverboard we can get behind… or indeed on. Next?

Many of us will have been in some form of lockdown for coming on 18 months by the time we’re truly liberated. In that time the world has undeniably changed: the air is cleaner, the views go further, and technology has advanced. Weakened by months of being sofa-bound, some people could find comfort in the latest soft exosuits (effectively wearable robots) to help them power up hills like an Olympian… and then, when they get there, gasp in terror at the wildlife – including the Siberian tiger, resurrected through the modern miracle of de-extinction and genetic engineering, and now beginning to come into regular contact with people owing to notable environmental improvements in built-up areas.

Heartening news for Joe Exotic. Whereabouts might we meet one of these adorable cats?

We’re talking north-east China, where it’s proper brass monkeys for most of the year. So if you do decide to go tiger-spotting I suggest you pack one of the latest aerogel-lined survival suits, which will gear you up to withstand temperatures as low as 1° Kelvin (that’s about -272°C), plus any incoming liquid nitrogen storms, while you remain nice and toasty. And should you run into trouble 100 miles into your marathon trek by getting stranded halfway up an ice wall, that guy from Gravity Industries wearing a jet-propelled Iron Man suit might just come to rescue you… at which point you’ll probably figure it’s time to go back to your sofa and that VR Okavango Delta experience. Ah, the great indoors…

THE LATEST SOFT EXOSUITS, EFFECTIVELY WEARABLE ROBOTS, COULD HELP YOU POWER UP HILLS LIKE AN OLYMPIAN