The 10 future technologies that Total Recall predicted in 1990

Total Recall is a movie that I haven't watched since the 90s. I viewed it recently and it still left me feeling as exhilrated as it did when I first watched it.

I remember the three breasted woman, (no one is going to ever forget her) the Johnny cab and Schwarzenegger's one liners. "Consider it a divorce," when he kills Sharon Stone.

Total Recall predicted the implementation of some future technologies; such as facetime but auto nail polish painters and 3 breasted women don't exist yet.

Paper money was still a medium of exchange in Total Recall but twenty eight years later governments are slowly phasing hard currency out of circulation. Remember the penny?

Here is a top 10 list of technologies that Total Recall got right.

1 Digital Signatures

Digitally signing for your mail or driver's license is common practice today but it wasn't in 1990.

2 GPS Tracking

Google tracks our whereabouts via their location services and breaches our privacy today. In Total Recall, Quaid's privacy was breached when the corporation that monopolized Mars' air supply tracked his every move.

3 Thumb scanner id technology

Way before Apple invented thumb scanner identification, we first got a glimpse of it when Quaid used it to check into his hotel.

4 Bullet high speed train

Japan had high speed rail in the 1960s but outside Japan, only Germany and England had high speed trains. The rest of the world didn't start rolling out this service until after Total Recall.

5 Face time

You wonder how much of an impact Total Recall had on Apple's founder Steve Jobs. Face time is the 2nd technology implemented by Apple which was seen first in Total Recall.

6 Microchip Implants

Today, companies are microchipping their employees. In exchange for conveniences like replacing their id cards with digital markers, people surrender their privacy and bodies to corporations.

7 Holograms

The first time I heard of a digital hologram was when Tupac Shakur's hologram performed posthumously. Sharon Stone was the original hologram G. Yo.

8 Tvs on buses.

Coach travel on long distance road trips are a lot more enjoyable today because of tv's on buses. That was not always the case in the past.

9 Self driving cars

Google is rolling out self driving cars soon sans Johnny.

10 Airport body scanners

We trade our privacy in exchange for safety. Eleven years after Total Recall, digital body scanners were introduced in airports because of 911.