School research paper... question for Sci-Fi geeks!?

[Sparrowe]

I'm a /casual/ sci-fi fan, so for my school research project, I decided for my topic to be the genre. My project is on roughly "Does the genre of science fiction affects the future?" (The future of technology or society, etc.)

I have most of it planned out but I need some help. I'm comparing the two sides of the argument (yes, it does affect the future / no, it doesn't) and I need some evidence for both sides... I'm not asking anyone to do research for me, but researching this project was harder than I expected. If you're a fan of the genre and you know some interesting facts I could use I'd love to hear them.

So if you have any facts I can look up or sources I could use, I'd appreciate it. YOU GEEKS WILL SAVE MY LIFE, I LOVE YOU ALL.

 

[LCC]

I've been a Trekkie since elementary school. I'll be 30 this year.

First of all start here, maybe that'll give some insight:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_influence_of_Star_Trek

Aside from that, a few things come to mind:
Hyposprays, PDAs, Laptop computers, Mobile Phones -- devices we take for granted today... they all first appeared in one form or another on Star Trek. (I'm most familiar with TNG but TOS probably has better examples).

Also, I've read that Cloaking technology is being worked on... you saw that in Trek too.