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"I don't have an e-mail address. As much as I admire the Internet I suffer literally agoraphobia, which in it's original sense means a fear of the marketplace. I do not want to receive three hundred e-mail messages per week from strangers…"
- William Gibson
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| Tabletop Display | ||
| A display monitor built into a flat, horizontal table surface. |
This is a very early description of the idea of a table-top display. All of the other display descriptions are horizontal, following the idea of a projection movie screen.
| The women were standing by what appeared to be a large flat-topped table. One of them, taller and more majestic even than her sisters, evidently a person in authority, spoke a few words, another pressed a button. Immediately what appeared to be a concave rostrum rolled forward and I was asked to take a seat immediately in front of it. Two metal creatures busied themselves with levers and dials.
A large metal mirror set in the face of the flat topped table suddenly became thronged with reflected images — of houses, people, air-motors, trees and flowers, all very minute, but rapidly growing distinct and clearcut. At first I couldn’t understand the purpose of this mirror. Then suddenly it came to me: this place was undoubtedly a television and radio-broadcasting station. The area to be served with pictures and oral news was being visualized in the mirror. I watched the reflections intently. On an infinitely smaller scale I was seeing the surrounding country, not only of the East Bay but of the Peninsula across the Bay. Not until the pictures were perfectly clear, and a certain radius assured, did the tall majestic woman begin to question me. |
| Technovelgy from An Adventure in Time,
by Francis Flagg. Published by Science Wonder Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the chess board hologram from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from An Adventure in Time
More Ideas
and Technology by Francis Flagg
Tech news articles related to An Adventure in Time
Tech news articles related to works by Francis Flagg
Tabletop Display-related
news articles:
- Multi-Touch Illuminate Table
- MisTable Fog Display Like SeaQuest DSV
| Transparent 4K OLED Wireless TV From LG |
| DOTPad Braille Device Offers Live Access |
| Transparent MicroLED Screen From Samsung |
| Augmented Reality Book Covers Reveal The Inner Book |
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'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.'
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.'
'Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement.'
'Norman... had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems.'
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
'As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped...'
'At the ringside opposite them a table had been removed to make room for a large transparent plastic capsule on wheels.'
'... he realized that the moving thing inside was - of course - a robot.'
