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"What has allowed so many Psychopathic Personalities to rise so high in corporations and government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| Gesture-Controlled Device | ||
| An electronic device that is controlled by hand gestures. |
| A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wave bands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive--you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program.
Zaphod waved a hand and the channel switched again. |
| Technovelgy from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
by Douglas Adams. Published by Harmony Books in 1979 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the hand wave control from Philip K. Dick's 1955 novel Solar Lottery. See also the filing crystal from Samuel R. Delany's Babel-17 (1968).
Thanks to Erik Nodacker for contributing this item.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
More Ideas
and Technology by Douglas Adams
Tech news articles related to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Tech news articles related to works by Douglas Adams
Gesture-Controlled Device-related
news articles:
- Gesture-Controlled TV Update
- JVC Clapper Gesture Recognition TV
- Robot Accepts Gesture Commands
- Arm Swing Authentication For Mobile Phones
- Walky iPhone Finger Gesture Robot Controller
- Gesture Cube Touch-Free Input
- 3D Input Interfaces For Gesture-Controlled Phones
- PrimeSense WAVI Xtion Gesture Control Of TV
- Geremin Gesture-Controlled Dashboard
- Control Robot Planes With Hand Gestures!
- GestIC Gesture Recognition Controller Uses Electrical Fields
- AllSee Low Power Gesture Recognition
- VW Golf R Touch With Gesture Control
- WatchSense Perfect For Fat-Fingered Smartwatch Owners
| The Zapata Air Scooter Would Be Great In A Science Fiction Story |
| Could Crystal Batteries Generate Power For Centuries? |
| Replace The Smartphone With A Connected Edge Node For AI Inference |
| Sunday Robotics 'Memo' Bot Has Unique Training Glove |
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'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
