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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner

Receptor Tape  
  A thin, flexible material that can pick up sounds.  

Gersen worked deftly and quickly. He inserted a trifle of receptor tape into the angle between door molding and wall, where it became for all practical purposes invisible. Using a pressure canister he sprayed a trail of conductive film from the tape around the door casing into the adjoining office and around the walls to the window...He touched his detector to the conductive trail he had sprayed upon the wall and turned high the volume...Presently he heard Panshaw's voice:'What caused the alarm?' 'Lumen impact, brief and low intensity'
Technovelgy from The Face, by Jack Vance.
Published by DAW in 1979
Additional resources -

You might want to look at an even more far-fetched item, magnetic eyes from way back in 1894.

(Thanks to Richard Probert for this item.)

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Face
  More Ideas and Technology by Jack Vance
  Tech news articles related to The Face
  Tech news articles related to works by Jack Vance

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Science Fiction in the News

How Old Are Tesla Designs?
You be the judge.

Is Your Autonomous Tractor Safe?
'The field-minder finished turning the top-soil of a two-thousand-acre field.'

Smart TVs Are Listening!
'You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard...'

Police Drones In China Would Like To Have A Word With You
''OVERRIDE,' the City Fathers said suddenly, without being asked anything at all.'

Are The Thought Police Listening To Everyone All The Time?
'... they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to.'

Finally, Robot Conductors On Autonomous Buses
'Wardour Street,' he told the robot-conductor.'

RoboShiko! Sumo Exercises Still Good For Robots
'... the expressionless face before me was therefore that of the golem-wrestler, Rolem, a creature that could be set for five times the strength of a human being.'

Giant Robotic Hands At Gundam Next Future Science
'Waldo put his arms into the primary pair before him; all three pairs, including the secondary pair mounted before the machine, came to life.'

JWST Finds Bucking Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1
'... the glittering little rocket bolted to the black iron behind him.'

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