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"Tokyo homeless people reiterate the whole nature of living in Tokyo in cardboard boxes, they're only slightly smaller than Tokyo apartments, and they have almost as many consumer goods. It's a nightmare of boxes within boxes."
- William Gibson
 |
| Visiphone | ||
| Visual as well as audio communication. |
As far as I know, this is the first use of this clever neologism, certainly as far as conventional science fiction in concerned.
| Beyond a doubt, he was greatly worried for, after muttering to himself a while, he turned to a visiphone which recorded
the image of the party at the other end.
"Section QG32, division KM2937," he called into the instrument. In a moment the face oŁ the official in charge of the indicated division appeared in a small disk mounted on top of the phone. "Mentel Prolack AD8C," said the Superintendent Inspector, "you will have a fast inspection flier ready for use at once with a crew of three. Include a Wexton ray machine." |
| Technovelgy from The Message From Space,
by David M. Speaker. Published by Amazing Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
This was a popular term; here it is used by 'Doc' Smith in Triplanetary (1934):
A slightly different spelling of this word was used earlier in a variety magazine, The Black Cat, in 1915; see the entry for Visaphone zoom call in a Harry Stephen Keeling short story John Jones's Dollar.
Then, as she sat upon a bench, recovering her strength, he flipped on the lifeboat's visiphone projector and shot its invisible beam up into the control room, where he saw space-armored figures furiously busy at the panels.
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'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'
'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
