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"SF looks towards an imaginary future, while fantasy, by and large, looks towards an imaginary past."
- Frederik Pohl
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| News Receptor | ||
| Devices used by homeostatic newspapers to gather news autonomically. |
How did automated news machines create their newspapers? Where did the information in the stories come from?
| Seated in his office, Peter Hood heard far underground a low rumble, a halting, uncertain stirring. They had been successful.
The edition, when it was laid on his desk by a bustling CURBman, surprised him by its accuracy. Even in its dormant state, the newspaper had somehow managed not to fall behind events. It's receptors had kept going... It was uncanny, Hood thought as he read the lead article. The very news-gathering services of the homeopape had reached into his own life, had digested and then inserted into the lead article even the discussion between himself and Otto Dietrich. The newspaper was - had been - doing its job. Nothing of news-interest escape it, even a discreet conversation carried on with no outsiders as witnesses... |
| Technovelgy from If There Were No Benny Cemoli,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Galaxy Publishing in 1953 Additional resources -
|
Current computer-generated news devices (like Google News) also make use of "news receptors". It's not difficult to imagine a news service that used sources like Twitter and Facebook to create accurate stories about individuals, just like in the quote from the Dick story.
Continue reading about homeostatic newspapers.
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Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
| Robot Preachers Found To Undermine Religious Commitment |
| Gaia - Why Stop With Just The Earth? |
| Splendid View Of Eclipse From Orbit Visualized And Repurposed By Arthur C. Clarke |
| SensorWake Scent-Based Alarm Clock |
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'You are who we say you are, Dr. Dakin,' Turner said.'
'It's area, and its consequent light-gathering capacity, was many times greater than any rigid mirror...'
'Tell me your torments,' the Padre said, in an elderly voice marked with compassion.
'...a slender-legged tripod surmounted by a spherical body no larger than a football.'
'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
