Red Dwarf's six greatest technologies

#3: Escort Boots

Escort boots were invented in the Red Dwarf world to take you to a set destination via a pre-programmed route -- you put on the shoes, and the shoes walked you to your cell. Convicts were popular wearers of the would-be 'Shoe Chauffeurs', because they're always such devils for running off and causing new and inventive kinds of hell.

Real life: We don't yet have mechanical shoes -- automated or otherwise -- but the closest is probably the increasingly awesome bionic limbs that help amputees restore their mobility. Some criminals are fitted with GPS tagging devices to ensure they're not going anywhere they shouldn't. Rest assured: it'll be tazer-equipped GPS tagging systems next.

#4: Personality Disks

As good as Apple's Time Machine backup application is, it hasn't yet managed to store our souls. On Red Dwarf however, personality disks could. They would store an individual's persona, allowing you to either recreate a deceased loved one as a living hologram, or a person of historical significance for parties, such as a hilarious TV weather girl or a controversial guest speaker such as Adolf Hitler. 

Real life: Today, we have something reasonably similar. It has personality records of almost 200 million individuals, in excruciating detail. A person's image, life history, hobbies and interactions with friends and co-workers can be downloaded to disk, and preserved for the future. It may not (yet) be compatible with holographic people projectors, but give Facebook time and we're sure it'll get there.

Next: Kryten's best friend...