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Hendo 2.0 Hoverboard Goes 'Back to the Future' on Oct. 21

 & Stephanie Mlot Contributor

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Next week, film fans around the world will go Back to the Future, and the husband-and-wife team who last year developed a working version of the film's famous hoverboard will be back for round two.

The Hendo 2.0 has a sleeker design, improved rider control, and quieter hover engines. Hendo HoverboardIt will launch on Oct. 21, 2015, which is the day that Marty McFly and Doc Brown arrived in the future in 1989's Back to the Future Part II.

"We're thrilled to be associated with BTTF's imaginative technologies, especially since ours is now a reality," Arx Pax CCO Jill Henderson said in a statement. "Our second-generation hover engines, which power Hendo 2.0, are stronger, more efficient, and open up new possibilities for the way we transport objects and people."

Using Arx Pax's patented Magnetic Field Architecture (MFA) technology, the hoverboard features four disc-shaped engines hidden under the board, which create a magnetic field that pushes against itself, allowing the board (and its rider) to levitate inches from the ground.

After skateboarding legend Tony Hawk last year took the Hendo for a spin (literally), he returned to collaborate with the Arx Pax design team on version 2.0, which, according to the company, is a more true-to-skateboard-style device.

"Getting Tony's feedback made a huge difference in our design approach," said Greg Henderson, Arx Pax co-founder and CEO. "After some long discussions, we all agreed that the hoverboard should be as intuitive as possible, so we used a traditional deck as the user interface."

The Hendo 2.0 Hoverboard also comes with an improved power system with additional charging and power management features, USB connectivity, and longer battery life; better traction for more intuitive control; simplified engine controls; and a wireless safety switch for remote power command.

"We've all heard of wearables; it's time to start thinking about moveables," Jill Henderson said.

Though first out of the gate, Arx Pax has some upscale competition: Lexus in June unveiled its own working hoverboard, dubbed Slide, which uses permanent magnets and liquid nitrogen-cooled superconductors to float. And earlier this year, Canadian Catalin Alexandru Duru smashed the Guinness World Record for hoverboard flight with a home-made quadcopter.

In early 2012, Mattel announced plans to release an exact replica of the BTTF 2 hoverboard, including "multiple whooshing sounds." Sadly, it did not hover.

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Stephanie Mlot

Stephanie Mlot

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