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

Home | Dictionary | Timeline | New

China Steals Strato Airship Design From Google App Engine

China is hard at work on a stratospheric airship that will cruise 12 miles above Earth and generate electricity using a built-in wind turbine.

Yes, this is a just-for-fun post, and is also a science fiction prediction, but I couldn't resist.

Did they steal the design for the stratospheric airship from the Google App Engine plushie toy?

(Google App Engine plushie from Google I/O in 2011)

And this is the logo version, which may be more clear.

(Google App Engine plushie toy)

Probably the earliest description of a similar war-balloon (aerostat) can be found in The Angel of the Revolution by George Griffith, published by Pearson's Weekly in 1893:

...the two fleets of war-balloons, or, as it would be more correct to call them, navigable aerostats, possessed by France and Russia.

"The aerostats have stationed themselves at great elevations over the ramparts of fortresses and the bivouacs of armies, and have rained down a hail of dynamite...

(Aerostats and Air-Ship from Angel of the Revolution)

The sober truth is that the invention and employment of these devastating appliances have completely altered the face of the field of battle and the conditions of modern warfare.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 8/1/2025)

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Engineering ")

US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.' - Iain Banks, 1987.

Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...' - Jack Williamson, 1942.

Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.' - Roger Zelazny, 1967.

Infrared Contact Lenses To See In The Dark
'I can see in the dark, Case.' William Gibson, 1984.

	Web TechNovelgy.com

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 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

Current News

AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'

US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'

Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'

Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'

Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'

Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'

Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'

Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'

Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'

I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'

Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'

Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.

'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'

Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'

ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'

Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories