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"I've come across more and more people who've actually tried reading science fiction and can't make it make sense."
- Samuel R. Delany
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| Home Manager | ||
| A device that responds to verbal or other commands; serves as an intelligent telephone answering machine and other tasks. |
There is a short mention of this in Queen of Angels. The unit functions in an apartment that clearly belongs to an upper caste person; it is probably an expensive item. Besides working as an answering machine, it has speech recognition and schedule keeping functionality.
| At Mary's whistle the home manager read her messages. Its masculine voice followed her through three rooms as she searched for a lost curl of mineral silver to wrap around her ear. "There's a call from Junior Lieutenant Theodora Ferrero, no message," the manager concluded. |
| From Queen of Angels,
by Greg Bear. Published by Warner Books in 1990 Additional resources -
|
There is a continuing fascination for devices like this in sf; another favorite example is the Daily Schedule (DS) in The Dosadi Experiment by Frank Herbert.
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'The Consul remembered his first glimpse of the kilometer-long treeship...'
'Do you know what window washing used to cost by the hour?'
'Once the target is confirmed, it uses an IR laser to send a coded signal back to the parent, clearing it to attack.'
'I filled your bullet hole with flesh putty and the lattice.'
'... it will be easy to form an alphabet which shall enable us to converse with the inhabitants of the moon.'
'From the tower's huge octagonal base radiate wide silvery strips...'
'It was about five feet long... a black bullet head and red camera eyes.'
'The Law Society has strict rules on the use of pseudo-intelligent software...'
