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Dude! Company floats fly hoverboard

Dude! Company floats fly hoverboard

By Mary Papenfuss
This might seem like a hoverboard but it's just an old-fashion skateboard. A California company has come up with the real thing. (UPI Photo/ David Silpa)
This might seem like a hoverboard but it's just an old-fashion skateboard. A California company has come up with the real thing. (UPI Photo/ David Silpa) | License Photo

LOS GATOS, Calif., Oct. 22 (UPI) -- It's back to the future for a trendy California company that has designed a credible version of a hoverboard made famous by the Michael J. Fox character Marty McFly in the popular sci-fi movie series.

The hoverboard of the future is a skateboard that floats on air. But that future is here, thanks to the Los Gatos company Arx Pax that has concocted a facsimile of McFly's board that floats — and can move — about an inch off the ground with the use of four disc-shaped hover engines that create a special magnetic field and a cushion of air.

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Bugs still need to be worked out. The Hendo hoverboard battery, for example, drains in minutes before it needs a recharge, the gadget weighs a hefty 90 pounds and costs a whopping $10,000. For now it can only float over highly conductive surfaces like copper or aluminum — not pavement. Arx Pax aims to raise more funds on Kickstarter to further develop its invention, and the technology that could be used in other applications. The current hoverboard version is the 18th prototype the company has created.

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Still, Gizmodo gave the gadget a test run and a delightedly stunned writer declared: "Ladies and gentlemen, the hoverboard is real."

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