Did they mean that they were holding in their hand, somehow, the actual future? That their hand was in tomorrow? No, they did not. What they meant was that the item they were holding would become commonplace in the future.

Think of a technology that became widespread from small beginnings. Let's use electricity as our example. There was a time when electricity was only available to the consumer in some large cities. One could have then said that electricity was the future. When people said that, did they mean that electricity had someone traveled back in time? No, they did not. What they meant was that in the future, electricity would be more commonplace, more widespread. In that situation, in some places - place with freely available electricity - the future had already arrived. In some places - places without freely available electricity - the future had not yet arrived. The future was unevenly distributed.

This isn't Metafilter.

It is Hacker News, though. Expecting people hanging around Hacker News to be familiar with some of the Hacker canon and culture isn't unrealistic.