Beautiful user interfaces of the future, according to science fiction

User interfaces remain one of the most fascinating elements of visual science fiction. They need to tell us something about what characters are doing (whether it’s aiming a weapon or tracking a criminal, apparently the two most common activities in the future) and something about what the world finds aesthetically appealing, all in a way that’s immediately understandable to people in the present. While most stay firmly in the future past, others have had a massive — some would say pernicious — impact on how we use technology in the real world. Even so, the designs often appear for only a few seconds onscreen, but the VisualPunke tumblr has collected them in an ongoing series of beautiful, often frenetic images from anime, video games, and blockbuster movies.