Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"In science fiction one can say a great many things that are unpalatable, … because it's expressed as science fiction you can slip it past their defenses."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Communication Disk | ||
| A wearable device that told the time as updated from a central source. |
| Back in his room, Garry pressed the 'time' button on the tiny communication disk strapped to his left upper-arm. "Eight-twenty-six," the metallic voice of the Central Chronometer Broadcast responded. |
| Technovelgy from Exiles of the Moon,
by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat). Published by Wonder Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
The innovation here is that a person could get the time from a central source, rather than a local timepiece that had been synchronized with a central source (but which now varied).
As early as 1904, the United States Naval Observatory (USNO) was broadcasting time signals from the city of Boston as an aid to navigation. In 1922, the BBC added time "pips' to their broadcast to aid in time synchrony. In the 1850's, a Meridian Circle Telescope was installed in the University of Michigan's Detroit Observatory in Ann Arbor; the time as determined from observation of stars and the Sun was used to coordinate shipping and trains in the Great Lakes region.
Today, of course, we all carry smartphones that get their time directly from a central source.
The communication disk also served as a telephone:
But the dead flatness of her voice against the tiny diaphragm told her that this device too was altered to enforce obedience to the edict her parent had but now pronounced...
Compare to the pulse-timer from Heretics of Dune (1984), by Frank Herbert and the voice-clock from The Martian Chronicles (1950), by Ray Bradbury.
She seized her jewelled communication disk and in a voice rendered almost unrecognizable by fury, called: "Father! Father!"
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Exiles of the Moon
More Ideas
and Technology by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat)
Tech news articles related to Exiles of the Moon
Tech news articles related to works by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat)
| Holobox? Who Doesn't Want A Home Hologram? |
| EBS-260 Handjet Free Hand Dot Matrix Printer |
| CD, DVD Bit Rot And PKD's Civic Notification Distorter |
| Zoom Education Idea Is 100 Years Old |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'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.'
