Predicting the future of technology isn't the only thing Philip K Dick's stories were good for - they also pointed towards other changes in society which have since come to pass. Before Paul Verhoeven depicted body scanners and driverless cars in Total Recall, Ridley Scott introduced the world to some other concepts in his adaptation of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, Blade Runner. The huge digital-style billboards might have looked futuristic when the film was released in the early 80s but visit any thriving metropolis today and the sight is fairly common, while the four year lifespan of the Replicants sounds remarkably familiar to anyone who is used to upgrading their gadgets regularly. The "Voight-Kampff" machine used to test replicants by measuring empathetic responses has also emerged in the modern world - albeit with different functionality - in tech like IBM's Watson device, capable of beating human opponents on the gameshow Jeopardy.
