Science Fiction in the News:
Science and Technology News

Brain-Dead Pregnant Woman Taken Off Life Support
Although this is a very creepy idea, Frank Herbert has already been here. (re: Frank Herbert)

'Smart Silk' In Quantity
Strongest stuff in the world, stronger than the best steel. Synthetic spider silk...- Robert Heinlein, 1939. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Motorcycle Racing Suit With Airbags
She jerks the manual release on her cervical collar and goes into full Michelin Man mode- Neal Stephenson, 1992. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Lapel Cameras For LAPD Officers
'Every move they made, were being transmitted to their home unit...'- David Brin, 1990. (re: David Brin)

SciCast Prediction Market Offers Collaborative Forecasting
'When you consolidate their replies they tend to cluster around the actual figure…'- John Brunner, 1975. (re: John Brunner)

QuickScann3D Has Your Full Body Duplicate
'... In a glass dome a three-dimensional simulacrum of himself six inches high took form.'- Jack Vance, 1954. (re: Jack Vance)

Edible Authentication Microchip
Ready to be monitored? (re: William Gibson)

Look Great In Your Garrison Bespoke Bulletproof Suit
'McKie longed for his armored clothing…'- Frank Herbert, 1977. (re: Frank Herbert)

Avegant Glyph Virtual Retinal Display
'...soon we'll be testing a system that projects directly on the retina of the eye…'- Kornbluth and Pohl, 1952 (re: Pohl and Kornbluth)

Ten Years Of Technovelgy
Thanks readers. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. (re: Bill Christensen)

First Commercial Artificial Brain?
'He had constructed an organ, a brain, of metal, entirely inorganic and lifeless...'- Edmond Hamilton, 1926. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

McCoy Home Health Tablet Declared Fraudulent
This nonexistent tablet is not even science-fictional, It's a scam. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Stasi Colonel Says Obama Surveillance Is 'Dream Come True'
'There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.'- George Orwell, 1948. (re: George Orwell)

MetaPro Holographic Glasses For VR Like Iron Man
'He passes you a pair of heavy, black-rimmed military spectacles…'- Charles Stross, 2007. (re: Bruce Sterling)

Robot Surgeons No Better Than Humans
"Take care, sir. (2-1B medical droid)" - George Lucas, 1980. (re: Harlan Ellison)

Robot Kirobo Talks With Astronauts Aboard ISS
Robots now converse in space. With humans. (re: George Lucas)

France Implants First Artificial Heart
'The workability of wholly mechanical organs…'- Philip K. Dick, 1964. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Protocell Running Shoes Regenerate
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color…'- JG Ballard, 1970. (re: JG Ballard)

Haute Cuisine On International Space Station
'The gas gave sufficient heat for the culinary apparatus…'-Jules Verne, 1867. (re: Jules Verne)

Tongue Mouse Created By Valve Engineer
'He pressed hard with his tongue against his right upper first molar.'- Alfred Bester, 1956. (re: Alfred Bester)

K5 Autonomous Data Machine The Future Of Mall Security
''Halt!' A robot guard appeared…'- Philip K. Dick, 1955. (re: Philip K. Dick)

RF Safe-Stop Shuts Cars Off
'...a police control-override.'- Keith Laumer, 1965. (re: Keith Laumer)

Army's New Bird-Like Surveillance UAV
'The prototype blue-bellied, gray-backed tracer-bird with the wide-angle eye…'- Roger Zelazny, 1980. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Honda's Tumblebug - The UNI-CUB beta
'A tumblebug does not give a man dignity…'- Robert Heinlein, 1940. (re: Robert Heinlein)

NASA's LADEE Enters Lunar Orbit
'... dust normally on the surface picks up and keeps a charge.' - Hal Clement, 1956. (re: Hal Clement)

3D Printing An Entire Car
"... Almost as good as the original it was printed from."- Philip K. Dick, 1956. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Aldebaran Robot Talks Like C3PO - Almost
That's a lot of languages - but there's room in our imagination for more. (re: George Lucas)

Google's Skin Tattoo Lie Detector
'Three and a half centimetres in diameter, permanently fixed in the centre of his forehead.'- Brian Aldiss, 1961. (re: Brian Aldiss)

inFORM Dynamic Shape Output Device
Like that pushpin device you remember, but supercharged. (re: David Brin)

Owlet Vitals, The Future Of Baby Monitoring
'In every diaper there is a fine copper wire…' - David H. Keller, 1928. (re: David H. Keller)

Robert Heinlein, Your Personal Electric Helicopter Will Be Ready In 2016
"They were half way home when a single flyer, hopping free in a copter harness, approached the little parade."- Robert Heinlein, 1954. (re: Robert Heinlein)

WildCat Runs Faster Than You, Untethered
'...moving with such drifting ease that it was like a single solid cloud of black-grey smoke blown at him in silence.' Ray Bradbury, 1953. (re: Neal Stephenson)

HiBot's ACM-R5H Robot Video Shows Graceful Terminator-Style Swimming
'No! No! Aaaaaaarrrrrrgh!' - Terminator Salvation, 2009. (re: Various)

tDCS Jumpstarts Your Future
'We invented a scanner that can change the labyrinthine neural connections of the brain by tiny electronic impulses…'- Edmond Hamilton, 1948. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

RealView Interactive Live Medical Holography
Surgeons can see an organ in its entirety in a live image. (re: Various)

Britney Spears And Lynn Minmay - Weapons Of Choice
An attack can take many forms. (re: Various)

Aireal Haptics Inching Towards Holodeck Experience
How to feel something that isn't there? (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Starchase Pursuit Management ala Star Wars
Yes, but does it follow evil doers through hyperspace? (re: George Lucas)

Child Trafficked To Britain By Organleggers
'The doctor took him apart with exquisite care, like disassembling a flexible, fragile, tremendously complex jigsaw puzzle.'- Larry Niven, 1967. (re: Larry Niven)

Nuclear Interceptors Designed For Planetary Protection
See NASA's concept for a nuclear interceptor. (re: Various)

Electro-Cosmetics Let You Input With Your Face
Hi, I'm Katia. I'm a superhero. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Google Vs. Death
Who wants to live forever? (re: James Blish)

OK2TALK Like Hearing Aid From Shockwave Rider
'Demanding no fees, it's affordable where psychotherapy is not.'- John Brunner, 1976. (re: John Brunner)

RealFace Glamoflage T-Shirt Like PKD's Scramble Suit
'...a million and a half physiognomic fraction-representations of various people...'- Philip K. Dick, 1977 (re: Philip K. Dick)

AquaTop Display Your Own Cylon Datastream
Command your robot army - from the tub! (re: Various)

Human On A Chip
'[The] life form ... had not yet objected to being made over into a portion of an electronic system.' (re: Philip K. Dick)

Engineered Bacteria Produces Gasoline
'They call 'em culture tanks... [they] produce oil as a waste product.'- Hal Clement, 1950. (re: Hal Clement)

Home Made Lightsaber?
'Instantly the disk put forth a blue-white beam as thick around as his thumb.'-George Lucas, 1976 (re: George Lucas)

Mock Drone Attack On German Chancellor
Try reading 'Kill Decision' to get another viewpoint on drone technology. (re: Daniel Suarez)

Control Your Dog Remotely
Your mutt will handle like a neodog with this advanced hardware and software. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Chinese Test UAV-based Parcel Courier Service
'...an aerial diaper service that flew diapers to rural homes...'- EB White, 1950. (re: EB White)

New Robot Threat - They Make You Love Them
Have you checked your feelings towards robots lately? (re: Philip K. Dick)

Self-Healing Polymer Works Without Catalyst
'It even had an inter-skin layer of gum that could seal the punctures...'- Raymond Z. Gallun, 1951. (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

Eye-Controlled Data Glasses
I've been reading about being able to have useful information overlaid onto my view of the world for years. (re: Neal Stephenson)

When Do I Get My Cheap, Flexible Touchscreen?
'Bud ... snapped at it with his fingernail. New mediaglyphics appeared...'- Neal Stephenson, 1995. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Living Human Kidneys 3D-Printed In China
Next thing you know, you'll be able to print your own organs at home... (re: Philip K. Dick)

Electronic License Plates For California By Smart Plate Mobile
Another science fiction prediction come to life! (re: Daniel Suarez)

Biosensing Clothing Listens To Your Heart
I'm thinking that Rudy Rucker should have one of these... (re: Rudy Rucker)

Biomimetic Artificial Muscles
The robots of tomorrow may have super-strength, thanks to this research. (re: HG Wells)

'Smart Sock' From Owlet Baby Care
'In every diaper there is a fine copper wire...'- David H. Keller, 1928. (re: David H. Keller)

360Specs Virtual Reality Glasses From Smartphones
From Ray Latypov, the inventor of the Virtusphere. (re: Bruce Sterling)

Elon Musk Creates Parts With Gestures Like Iron Man
For some men, tomorrow is too long to wait for the future. (re: Various)

Calling Google's RoboTaxi
'The taxi utilized sophisticated electronic sensors to perceive its surroundings...'- Allan Dean Foster, 2006. (re: Allan Dean Foster)

Mobiserv Social Companion Robot
'Behind Norton came a withered old woman. Beside her moved a gleaming robant...'- Philip K. Dick, 1953. (re: Philip K Dick)

Pasona Office Building Is An Urban Farm
To what extremes of temperature and humidity would you accede in order to be more green? (re: Pohl and Kornbluth)

RoboThespian - Robot Comedian Wants Louis CK's Job
Even on microwire that file of jokes took up a lot of space...- William Tenn, 1951. (re: William Tenn)

SpaceX Grasshopper Divert Video
Isn't this the way that rocket ships were meant to land? (re: )

A Forced Air-Cooled Jacket?
'He went to the hall closet to get his pith helmet and his mandatory cooling-unit...'- Philip K. Dick, 1964. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Lawmaker License Plates Invisible To Traffic Cams
'Gragg's digital ink license plates flicked from California to Oregon vanity tags that read GECCO...'- Daniel Suarez, 2009. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Smartphone Monitoring Trashcans Binned
'The can intoned. "Galveston appreciates good citizenship.'- Bruce Sterling, 1988. (re: Bruce Sterling)

Plantscraper From Plantagon
'A towering eighty-story structure like the office "In-and-Out" baskets stacked up to the sky.'- Pohl and Kornbluth, 1952. (re: Pohl and Kornbluth)

The STAR Robot - From Minority Report?
Pretty close match, functionally speaking. (re: Steven Spielberg)

The Most Expensive Burger Ever Made?
'the carniculture plant where any kind of animal tissue we wanted was grown--Terran pork and beef and poultry...'- H. Beam Piper, 1962. (re: Various)

Tattoo Biosensor Warns Athletes Of 'The Wall'
For extreme athletes only. For now. (re: Nolan and Johnson)

Self-Assembling Robot Swarm
'...the Sheen Robots assemble themselves when the signal to do it is registered by them.'- James Schmitz, 1966. (re: James Schmitz)

AIREAL Lets You Feel Virtual Objects In The Open Air
'Startled, he touched his mouth. 'How the devil did you do that?' he shouted.'- Frederick Pohl, 1965. (re: Frederick Pohl)

75 Percent Of Americans Prefer Paper Books!
'The books were crystals with recorded contents.'- Stanislaw Lem, 1961. (re: Stanislaw Lem)

Samsung 840 Evo 1TB Solid-State Drive
'A man or woman could carry AIs or complete planetary dataspheres in a Schrön loop.'- Dan Simmons, 1989. (re: Dan Simmons)

First (Nonfictional) Stainless Steel Robot With 7 DOF
'I am not stupid you know. They cannot make things like that yet.'- James Cameron. 1984. (re: James Cameron)

Computer Simulates Daydreaming
Perhaps you will dream of HAL, just as I often do.- Arthur C. Clarke, 1982. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Robotic Snake Inspects Nuclear Plant
'It did not look alive and it did not look dead.'- Greg Bear, 2007. (re: Various)

Bionic Ear 3D Printed
The ultimate hearing aid. (re: Various)

Smart Diapers Help Spot Disease
'In every diaper there is a fine copper wire...'- David H. Keller, 1928. (re: David H. Keller)

Electronic Skin For Human Prosthetics
'It's all sheathed about with piezo-electric radar mesentery...'- Roger Zelazny, 1966. (re: Roger Zelazny)

New Global Century Center: China's Truman Show Venue
We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.- The Truman Show. (re: Various)

Hyperloop Transport Proposed By Tesla's Elon Musk
'...an hollow tube must be constructed the whole distance... of such dimensions as to admit a four wheeled carriage...'- George Medhurst, 1812. (re: Harl Vincent)

SolePower Insole Generates Power By Walking
'...the action of the heel-powered pumps that drove his stillsuit.'- Frank Herbert, 1969 (re: Frank Herbert)

Did Humans Result from Pig-Chimp Hybridization?
Is it possible that human origins can be best explained by hybridization between swine and chimpanzees? (re: Alan E. Nourse)

SKYLON Space Plane Gets Boost
'They were more airplane than spaceship...'- Robert Heinlein, 1951. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Transparent Smartphone Prototype From Polytron
See through this future phone in a video. (re: H.G. Wells)

Self-Building, Self-Tooling, Autonomous Manufacturing
'The machinery was building a miniature replica of the demolished factory.'- Philip K. Dick, 1953. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Ultrasonic Noise Betrays ISS Leaks
Gentlemen, Be Seated! (re: Robert Heinlein)

Robonaut To Get Eight-Legged Spidernaut Configuration?
'The eight thin metallic legs were pointed downwards, balanced delicately...'- Charles Sheffield, 1979. (re: Charles Sheffield)

Robot Fish Now With Autonomous 3D Swimming
'With one fluid motion, it surged forward, plunged, and was gone.'- Michael Swanwick, 2002. (re: Michael Swanwick)

Robot To Detect The Source Of Odors
'The Electric Hound snuffed down the last trail, silent as a drift of death itself...'- Ray Bradbury, 1953. (re: Ray Bradbury)

Intraoral Tongue Drive System
'The operation that had transformed half his body... had located the control switchboard in his teeth.'- Alfred Bester, 1956. (re: Alfred Bester)

Preorder Recon Jet - It's Heavy Duty Glass
'All displays are thrown on a mirror in front of your forehead...'- Robert Heinlein, 1959. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Flexible Smartphone Displays From LG
'She set up a screen: a television that unrolled like a poster.'- Larry Niven, 1976. (re: Larry Niven)

Self-Burying Robots - What Could Go Wrong?
'Some of the little claws were learning to hide themselves, burrowing down into the ash...'- Philip K. Dick, 1953 (re: Philip K. Dick)

Not Going To Google IO
'Those who could not come in person would watch these proceedings via the glittering transmitter eyes...'- Frank Herbert, 1977. (re: Frank Herbert)

NSA Data Mining And 'Cybernetic Water Witches'
'He was an intuitive fisher of patterns of information...'- William Gibson, 1996. (re: William Gibson)

Artificial Magnetic Monopoles Created
Could monopoles exist in nature? Might they be found in exotic materials in space? (re: Larry Niven)

ZenRobotics Sorts Trash With Artificial Intelligence
'They're just plain lifting robots and not too brainy, but good enough to recognize most things they pick up...'- Harry Harrison, 1956. (re: Harry Harrison)

The F-Bike Flies!
'The flycycles... a pair of four foot spheres joined by the constriction that held the saddle.'- Larry Niven, 1970. (re: Larry Niven)

Is Noam Chomsky As Paranoid As Philip K. Dick?
'I'm Bill Behren... Operator of fly 33408...'- Philip K. Dick, 1964. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Low-Cost, Implantable Electronics Get Closer
Better coatings need to become a reality, before science-fictional devices can come into being. (re: Samuel R. Delany)

'Marauder's Map' Created By Carnegie Melllon
'Is that Dumbledore in his study?' (re: J.K. Rowling)

Cheetah Cub Robot From PKD's Android Dreams
'What about an exact electric duplicate of your cat?'- Philip K. Dick, 1968. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Dead Cellphone? Try Solar-Powered Public Charging Stations
'Then he saw the geek ... leaning against one of the slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector...'- David Brin, 1990. (re: David Brin)

Hungry? Grow Nutritious Insects At Home
'...I balked when my wife served me termites.'- David Brin, 1994. (re: David Brin)

Snowboarding On Mars? Heinlein Was Ready
How long ago did Robert Heinlein write about skiing on dry alien worlds? (re: Robert Heinlein)

Orwell's '1984' Hits Bestseller Lists Thanks To PRISM
'There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.'- George Orwell, 1948. (re: George Orwell)

Roboroach Control? There's An App For That
'A cable, here, from the controller to the interface plug... wires from that to the brain.'- Thomas Easton, 1990. (re: Thomas A. Easton)

Court OK's DNA Collection Like 'Gattaca'
DNA sampling is not the same as fingerprinting. Do you agree with this? (re: Andrew Niccol)

Squid Vs. Whale Diorama Liked By Humans, Aliens
'Everything was ready, awaiting the Overlords' pleasure...'- Arthur C. Clarke, 1953. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Iceberg Harvesting Off Newfoundland's Coast
'Five hundred billion gallons worth of Antarctic iceberg had been towed into Santa Monica Bay.'- Pournelle and Niven, 1981. (re: Pournelle and Niven)

Sony's A4-Sized Flexible Digital Paper Notepad
'...he would plug his foolscap-sized Newspad into the ship's information circuit and scan the latest reports...'- Arthur C. Clarke, 1968. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Contact Lens Video Display Electronics Now Transparent
'He realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it...'- Vernor Vinge, 2006. (re: Niven & Barnes)

Tesla's Supercharger Station Plan
'To recharge the batteries, which can be done in almost every town and village...'- John Jacob Astor IV, 1894. (re: John Jacob Astor IV)

Millimeter-Scale Computing For 'Internet of Things'
'In their megalomania they thought to make the very sand beneath their feet intelligent...'- Stanislaw Lem, 1965. (re: Stanislaw Lem)

Your Own Handheld Biosensor
'I'm gonna do a hand-held Boink, real quick,' Littleberry said'- Richard Preston, 1997. (re: Richard Preston)

DARPA's Warrior Web
'Earth's scientists solved the problem to some extent by devising rigid metallic clothing not unlike armor...'- Edmond Hamilton, 1932. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

Chris Hadfield, Space Oddity And Space Lawyers
'Had incorporated himself, in fact, under the laws of Vesta.'- Nat Schachner, 1941. (re: Nat Schachner)

Oceanwings For Underwater Human Flight
'He flexed his legs, the massive flukes thrust back jerkily in response...'- David Brin, 1979. (re: David Brin)

CurvACE Artificial Compound Insect Eye
'...transmitting to its manipulator, far away now, all that it ... saw with its minute vision tubes.'- Raymond Z. Gallun, 1936. (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

Sweat Be Gone! Non-Wetting Fabric
'The skin-contact layer is porous.'- Frank Herbert, 1965. (re: Frank Herbert)

German Firm Seeks To Recruit Autistics
Large corporations seem to be learning that people with autism can have unique strengths. (re: Elizabeth Moon)

NASA Supports Pizza Printer
Is it extra with printed pepperoni? (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Could Ground-Based Lasers De-Orbit Space Junk?
'Then their lasers vaporized the smaller satellites...'- Arthur C. Clarke, 1978. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

'Hello, Computer!' Google Now Highlighted at IO13
'Hello, computer!'- Gene Roddenberry, 1986. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

MIT Robot Cheetah Video Shows Gait Transition
'The legs are long, curled way up to deliver power, like a cheetah's.'- Neal Stephenson, 1992. (re: Neal Stephenson)

TrackingPoint Smart Rifle
Not your typical 'smart bullet' approach. (re: Various)

Sky City's 220 Stories Are Go
‘Two miles wide, two miles long, and two miles high is eight cubic miles.’ Louis Tucker, 1929. (re: Louis Tucker)

CARMAT Bioprosthetic Total Human Heart Replacement
'George Walt's corporate existence proved the workability of wholly mechanical organs...'- Philip K. Dick, 1964. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Personal Sniffer Robots
'...The ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound.'- Ray Bradbury, 1953. (re: Ray Bradbury)

Physical Exam? We've Got Apps
See the future of handheld, personal medical devices used with your smartphone. (re: Robert Silverberg)

The Interplanetary Internet, Vint Cerf Speaking
'This was the center of Interplanetary Communications.'- George O. Smith, 1942. (re: George O. Smith)

Drosophila Robotica, The Mechanical Fly
'... the Scarab [flying robot] buzzed into the great workroom as any intruding insect might...'- Raymond Z. Gallun, 1936. (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

Robo-Raven Flapping Wing Robot Bird
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'- Philip E. High, 1968. (re: Philip E. High)

Japan's Nursing Home Robot Plan
Let's make the Roujin Z-0001 Robotic Bed! (re: Katsuhiro Otomo)

Samsung Smart TVs With Gesture Control
'He waved his hand and the circuit switched abruptly.'- Philip K. Dick, 1955. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Swiss HCPVT Giant Photovoltaic 'Flower'
'...leaning against one of the slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector.'- David Brin, 1990. (re: David Brin)

Mini-Livers Made By 3D Printer
Organlegging may not be the growth industry that some fear. (re: Larry Niven)

Smartphone Sensor System Tracks Gunfire
'Sound trackers on the roof could zero in on weapons action...'-Greg Bear, 2007. (re: Greg Bear)

Bacteria Now Make Biofuel Like Oil
'They have ... germs that eat pretty near anything, and produce oil as a waste product.'- Hal Clement, 1950. (re: Hal Clement)

Peel And Stick Thin Film Solar Cells
'It turns sunlight into electricity, just like any solar power converter, but you spray it on.'- Larry Niven, 1995. (re: Larry Niven)

A Big Collection Of Small Books
'Black, oblong, no larger than the end of Paul's thumb... It's a very old Orange Catholic Bible made for space travelers.'- Frank Herbert, 1965. (re: Frank Herbert)

Mu-Gripper Microsurgical 'Robots'
'It took about seven minutes ... for the cookie cutters to be randomly distributed throughout the victim's organs and limbs.'- Neal Stephenson, 1995. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Bartendro Robot Bartender
'He sipped the cognac that the robot bartender handed him...'- Alfred Bester, 1956. (re: Harry Harrison)

Implantable Bioengineered Rat Kidney Tested
'Probably Runciter's body contained a dozen artiforgs...'- Philip K. Dick, 1969. (re: Philip K. Dick)

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