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"I received a nice letter the other day from the Dalai Lama. He had read 'The Nine Billion Names of God'. It is about a computer at a Tibetan monastery."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Data Goggles | ||
| Eyewear connected to a computer provides total immersion in the matrix. |
The world of Snow Crash offers a display that is short of actually connecting your brain to the Internet.
| He is wearing shiny goggles that wrap halfway round his head; the bows of the goggles have little earphones that are plugged into his outer ears.
The earphones have some built-in noise cancellation features. This sort of thing works best on steady noise... The goggles throw a light, smoky haze across his eyes, and reflect a distorted wide-angle view of a brilliantly lit boulevard that stretches off into an infinite blackness. This boulevard does not actually exist; it is a computer-generated view of an imaginary place. |
| Technovelgy from Snow Crash,
by Neal Stephenson. Published by Bantam in 1992 Additional resources -
|
A similar device is mentioned in William Gibson's 1996 novel Idoru - the eyephone.
If you are interested in a real-world analog to the sound system on data goggles, see the Science Fiction in the News story on Thump Eyewear.
Compare also to magic spectacles from Pygmalion's Spectacles (1935) by Stanley G. Weinbaum, video glasses from Islands in the Net (1988) by Bruce Sterling, Tru-Vu Lenses from Earth (1990) by David Brin, eyecaps from Starfish (1999) by Peter Watts, overlay specs from Halting State (2007) by Charles Stross and HUD glasses from Daemon (2009) by Daniel Suarez.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Snow Crash
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and Technology by Neal Stephenson
Tech news articles related to Snow Crash
Tech news articles related to works by Neal Stephenson
Data Goggles-related
news articles:
- Eye-Controlled Data Glasses
- What Can Magic Leap Expect From New 'Chief Futurist' Neal Stephenson?
| Transparent 4K OLED Wireless TV From LG |
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'He was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors...'
'The robant and the tiny old woman entered the control room slowly...'
'Guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs... What are the odds?'
'It is as you thought when you constructed the time crystal, my master Vaylan.'
'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
