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"Every scientist worth his salt that I know of has read science fiction."
- Greg Bear
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| Guide-Beam | ||
| A wireless means of controlling and directing the movement of a passenger vehicle. |
| He spun off down the road, allowing the car to operate on the New York guide-beam. It was safer that wy. And a lot quickr. He didn't mind having his car operated from a hundred miles off. All the other cars racing along the eight-lane highway were guide operated. Made accidents almost impossible, and meant he could enjoy the countryside...
Something picked up the car and hurled it from the road. The guide had failed. Interference. That was his last thought. |
| Technovelgy from Time Pawn,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1954 Additional resources -
|
This is how it appeared in Dr. Futurity six years later:
Compare with the Camden speedster from Robert Heinlein's 1941 story Methuselah's Children. Charles Stross came up with a very interesting variation on this idea in his 2007 novel Halting State; see driverless drones.
He spun off down the road, allowing the car to operate on the San Francisco guide-beam north. It was safer that way, especially on U.S. 101. And a lot quicker. He didn't mind having his car operated from a hundred miles off. All the other cars racing along the sixteen lane highway were guide-operated, too, those going his way and those heading in the opposite direction, on the analog south highway to Los Angeles. It made accidents almost impossible, and meant he could enjoy the educational notices which various universities traditionally posted along the route. And, behind the notices, the countryside.
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
