Science Fiction in the News:
Science and Technology News

Read My Lips - Computer Interprets Human Emotion
Soon, the emotion chip. (re: Various)

NASA's Robotic Rover Drivers
'Helmuth, after all, was not on Jupiter - though that was becoming harder and harder for him to bear in mind.' (re: James Blish)

Needle Beam Propagates Without Spreading
'Direct needlecast from here into a shielded stack...' (re: Richard Morgan)

Harvey The Agricultural Robot
Introducing the Harvest Vehicle HV-100. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Cheetah Robot Passes 28 MPH (Video)
'The legs are long, curled way up to deliver power, like a cheetah's...' (re: William Gibson)

Rat Dreams Manipulated By Scientists
'Render freed his arm and lifted off his crown of Medusa-hair leads and microminiature circuitry...' (re: Roger Zelazny)

Syrians Ask For Help From Mars
'...enormous figures, drawn in characters of reflecting luminosity...' (re: Jules Verne)

Pre-Bionic Eye Implants Down Under
The Six Million Dollar Man is coming! (re: Various)

Noodle-Shaving Robot Army Invades China
'One of these gorgeous eating places where we were served entirely by mechanical apparatus...' (re: Anthony Boucher)

SketRobo Robot Sketches Anything!
Robots can draw now. (re: Various)

How Smart Should Artificial Intelligences Get?
'...The real smart ones are as smart as the Turing heat lets them get...' (re: William Gibson)

Kinect@home Needs Your Help Identifying Objects
'... whenever a robot finds something it can't identify straight off... it puts whatever it is in the hopper outside your window.' (re: Amitav Ghosh)

RoboDoc Friendly Robot Pulse-Taker
A child-friendly Photoplethysmograph. (re: Michael Crichton)

Arizona Solar Updraft Tower By 2015
'And eventually, an hour later, it reached its glorious one thousand feet of height.' (re: Leigh and Walt Richmond)

Hover Bike Like Star Wars Landspeeder - With Video!
This could be the speeder you're looking for. (re: George Lucas)

Honda's Miimo Robotic Lawn Mower On Sale
'The mower reached the edge of the lawn, clucked to itself like a contented hen...' (re: Clifford Simak)

Cyborg Tissues Combine Transistors and Cells
'Nat Flieger reflexively poured water into a cup and fed the living protoplasm incorporated into the Ampek F-a2 recording system...' (re: Philip K. Dick)

Glove Tricorder Improves Physical Exams (Updated!)
It allows for data from the physical exam to be a component of automated diagnosis. (re: Various)

Google Self-Driving Car Now Commuter-Ready
'The car slid up the ramp... then joined the high-speed northbound stream. Mary Risling settled back for a little nap...' (re: Robert Heinlein)

DARPA M3 Soft Camo Robots
'Monique's tissues had at least three other basic attractor modes... [like] the spread-out "puddle" shape...' (re: Rudy Rucker)

Palm Scanners - Quick Lunch Or Mark Of The Beast
'Bad cootie factor with those palm-scan things.' (re: William Gibson)

The Library Of The Future
'A Filer is an amazingly intelligent robot and there aren't many being manufactured.' (re: Stanton Coblentz)

Mini Ion Thrusters To Push Tiny Satellites
Perfect for pushing your cubesat around. (re: Murray Leinster)

Double Robotics iPad-Based Telepresence Robot
'Rand could effectively be in several places at once...' (re: Niven and Pournelle)

Trinity Chapel Offers Giving Kiosk
'A holy blue light filled the interior of the machine...' (re: Roger Zelazny)

DNA As An Archival Storage System
Four grams of DNA theoretically could store the digital data humankind creates in one year. Library of Congress, take note. (re: Barbara Hambly)

Meshworm Inches Toward You (Thanks, Harry Harrison)
'...in operation it is not unlike the common earthworm.' (re: Harry Harrison)

I Want A Curiosity Rover Sky Crane!
'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.' (re: Jack Vance)

Podtime Sleeping Pod Like Niven's Napcap
'The lid lifted and she crawled inside... The inside received her as a womb.' (re: Niven/Barnes)

CompanionAble Project's Companion Robot Hector
'Beside her moved a gleaming robant...' (re: Philip K. Dick)

Artificial Jellyfish Swims On Its Own
'It was a chemotactic artificial jellyfish designed to slither into undersea vents...' (re: Rucker/Sterling)

Cocoagraph Edible Photos Like Spatial-Postal Cards
'Before Bill's startled gaze... the card was starting to swell.' (re: Harry Harrison)

USC's Project Holodeck
Soon, a hologrid with omnidirectional holographic diodes! (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Galaxy Beam Smartphone Projector
"Ifness drew from his pocket a tube of dull black metal an inch in diameter, four inches long." (re: Jack Vance)

iWalk BiOM Power Foot
Walk naturally, bionic men. (re: Martin Caidin)

3D Printed Exoskeleton Uplifts Little Girl
This remarkable story shows that 3D printer technology is just getting started. (re: Fritz Leiber)

Japan's Android Robot Restaurant
Giant fembots wait to entertain you. (re: George Lucas)

'Invisible' Bicycle Helmet
Would go well with your airbag jacket. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Laser Lofts UAV for Two Day Flight
Based on an idea from a physicist and science fiction writer in the 1960's. (re: Niven/Pournelle)

Hacker Creates Augmented Reality Anime Girlfriend
'She is Tei Toei. She is ... a congeries of software agents.' (re: Robert Heinlein)

These Robot Legs Are Made For, Well, Walking
Even replicates human neural networks. (re: James Cameron)

Mahoro Two-Armed Lab Robot
'...He realized that the moving thing inside was - of course - a robot.' (re: James Blish)

PredPol Crime-Prediction A Hit In L.A.
'All day long the idiots babbled...' (re: Philip K. Dick)

What Camouflage Pattern Is Best?
If you can't see it, you're making progress. (re: George R.R. Martin)

Festo ExoHand Fine Motor Skill Robotic Hand
'Waldo put his arms into the primary pair before him - all three pairs... came to life.' (re: Robert Heinlein)

Google's Compute Engine Is Sfnally Large
'...Twenty-five thousand electronic brains were set up in intricate series.' (re: AE van Vogt)

Ford Smart Car Stops Your Texting
'Okay,' he said, feeling humiliated. Maybe the car was right... (re: Philip K. Dick)

Gideon eBibles And Frank Herbert's OC Bible
The Gideons are surprising liberal in their approach, btw. (re: Frank Herbert)

Google Wallet Like Pohl's Joymaker Credit Card
You must know the institutional designation and account spectrum ... (re: Frederik Pohl)

Google's Voice Recognition Sweet In Jelly Bean
'...Translating most normal variations of voice, idiom, accent... into the mathematical expressions on which the computers operate.' (re: Frederik Pohl)

Google Glass: The Next Big Platform?
Will you be buying these in 2014? (re: Charles Stross)

Spray-On Lithium Ion Battery
'...the five-year battery-plate contained within the back cover of the mag.' (re: Philip K. Dick)

Hydrolemic Systems Prepares For Water Shortages
'...Living on reclaimed moisture from his own breath and body.' (re: Frank Herbert)

Inject Oxygen Into The Bloodstream Like Star Trek Triox
Dr. McCoy had this in his medical bag. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

'Mind Uploading' Issue Now Downloadable
'The estimated duration of this model is five hundred thousand years...' (re: Richard Morgan)

Penguin E-Books For Libraries
Read about it on your iPad. (re: Stanislaw Lem)

Space Command Is In Your Hands
A most congenial project for Technovelgy readers. (re: Various)

Archeo-Robot Scans Ancient Roman Sewers
Great video of the 'cloaca maxima'. (re: Ridley Scott)

Eole Water Turbine Like Star Wars Vaporator
'The atmosphere yielded its moisture with reluctance.' (re: George Lucas)

BioTac Robot's Finger More Sensitive Than Yours
'We have at last found a way to link computer circuitry with synthetic flesh...' (re: Ray Cumings)

$99 Lidar Plus UAV Equals Prometheus Mapping Device
Sounds like a fun way to map indoor spaces. (re: Ridley Scott)

China Carries Out Automated Space Docking
China's space capabilities continue to evolve. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

'Arc Reactor'-Inspired Energy Source
Tony Stark would just build one! (re: Stan Lee)

Eyedox Genetic Test To Exclude Color Blind
Imagine a future in which employment is restricted based on genetic testing. (re: Andrew Niccol)

NASA Plans Autonomous Robots To Explore Planets
First step toward... Imperial Probe Droids? (re: George Lucas)

Robots Learn Language Via Random Syllabic Babble
'...let them teach themselves by trial and error.' (re: Stephen Barr)

Elvis And Jimi To Return Hologramatically?
The Return of the King. (re: Various)

Real-Time Avatars Mirror Your Expression
'These people are pieces of software called avatars.' (re: Neal Stephenson)

Self-Healing Materials - Microencapsulated or Microvascular
'An inter-skin layer of gum that could seal the punctures...' (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

Together Anywhere, Together Anytime
The telephote! Here is another great triumph of modern science. (re: Jules Verne)

Joggobot Shadows Your Steps
Like stick-tights. (re: Various)

Artificial Noses For Disease Diagnostics
'...Set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound...' (re: Ray Bradbury)

Transcontinental Flight By Solar-Powered Plane
'...Placed in the wings of a plane to generate power from the light falling on that surface...' (re: John W. Campbell)

Non-Mechanical Bubble Microbots
Cooperative Micromanipulation Using Optically Controlled Bubble Microrobots (re: Isaac Asimov)

ASU Full-Color Flexible Display World's Largest?
Also, cost-effective in production. (re: E.C. Tubb)

Tactus Tactile Layer Generates A Haptic User Interface
Who says a full screen smartphone can't have a real keyboard? (re: Various)

US Special Ops Wants Paralysis Device
'I have invented a weapon, Miss Carlyle... A paralysis ray!' (re: Arthur K. Barnes)

The bebionic3 Robotic Artificial Hand
'At the moment Eldritch made use of the five-finger humanoid manual extremity...' (re: Philip K. Dick)

The Funnel Wall
'Some towers sound their notes while others fall silent...' (re: George R.R. Martin)

C1 - The Gyro-Stabilized Two-Wheeled Ground Car
'Motorcycle-wise, but automatically, the "Dilly" leaned against its gyroscopes at precisely the correct angle...' (re: Robert Heinlein)

The Hopper - with Carl Sagan's Adnix!
'It wasn't at first a context-recognition device.' (re: Carl Sagan)

MIT Smile Research Knows Your Real One
'Why don't you take a stress pill and get some rest?' (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

The Flame - Malware Worthy of John Brunner
'There were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net now, the machines had been instructed to give them low priority.' (re: John Brunner)

A Cool DIY Magnetically Levitated Bed
'Everything was suspended magnetically at the proper height... ' (re: William Gibson)

Laser-Guided Smart Bullet Prototype
'Look, it's all electronic...' (re: Michael Crichton)

Variable-Depth Jet-Injection Hypospray
Tomorrow's medical technology today. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

ZeroN The Levitating Orb Interface
Just follow the orb. (re: Eando Binder)

10K Illegal Kidneys Transplanted Every Year
'Any one of these units could be packed in a travel case at a moment's notice...' (re: Larry Niven)

SHOAL Robotic Fish Patrol Harbors
'The Mitsubishi turbot wriggled, as if alive. With one fluid motion, it surged forward, plunged, and was gone.' (re: Michael Swanwick)

LiquiGlide Coating, Your New Condiment Lubricant
'The water flowed off those walls without binding tension...' (re: Frank Herbert)

Israel's Robotic Butterfly Drone Flies Indoors
'There it studied its surroundings, transmitting to its manipulator... all that it heard through its ear microphones and saw with its minute vision tubes.' (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

Synchronizing Humanoid Robot Swarms
'They wheeled and turned in macabre simultaneity...' (re: Isaac Asimov)

Google Patents 'Spy In Your Pocket' Smartphone
'Franklin waited impatiently as the five-second commercial break cut in...' (re: J.G. Ballard)

Brainput Finds Help For Your Brain
'I used my implant to tell MILLIE what we wanted and she took care of it...' (re: Pournelle and Niven)

HyQ Four-Legged Robot From Italy
'He admired the fast-plodding, articulated legs, so necessary since roads had degenerated...' (re: Anthony Boucher)

NASA's Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator
From the Office of the Chief Technologist. (re: EE 'Doc' Smith)

Robots In The Mines
Dangerous professions can be made safer with robots. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Smart, Self-Healing Hydrogels
Linked chains of polymer molecules... with 'dangling side chain' molecules. (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

Paralyzed Woman In Robotic Exoskeleton Finishes Marathon
Human courage plus technological progress equals science fiction in the news! (re: Fritz Leiber)

UrbanSim Counterinsurgency Training App
'Why simulation?' 'He's beginning to do things I didn't anticipate.' (re: Frank Herbert)

Kyocera Speakerless Smartphone (ala Gernsback)
For once, an sf author filed a patent on a great idea - Hugo Gernsback saw this one coming. (re: Hugo Gernsback)

Touché Interaction With Everyday Objects
Unique control surfaces are everywhere, it seems. (re: Various)

Korean Robot Prison Guard Is Autonomous
'Automatic relays clicked as the robot studied the identification clip.' (re: Philip K. Dick)

Blueseed Offshore Floating Corporation Ready By 2014
'...new islands bringing life to a watery desert.' (re: Larry Niven)

Robots In Restaurant Outnumber Humans
Robots continue to become more capable. (re: George Lucas)

Russia's SAR-400 To Work Alongside Robonaut 2
'For a wild instant he had thought there was a man on Jupiter already...' (re: James Blish)

The Most Densely Populated Place On Earth
'The population density shocked McKie...' (re: Frank Herbert)

Cadillac Super Cruise Self-Driving Car
Cadillac luxury, in an autonomous vehicle. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Real-Time 3D Electron Microscopy
Clever device lets researchers use those red/blue 3D glasses they picked up at the local theater... (re: Robert Cromie)

TeleHuman Life-Size 3D Telepresence
'... a lifesize and moving and stereoscopically perfect image, flashed across the void of space to my apparatus by means of etheric vibrations...' (re: Edmond Hamilton)

Nicotine 'Vaccine' Under Development
'You're biochemically incapable of getting off...' (re: William Gibson)

HERB Home Exploring Robot Butler
'There was the butler robot, hard at work, his copper face expressionless.' (re: Frederik Pohl)

Kinze Autonomy Project's Autonomous Tractors
Will farms become safer with robots? (re: Harry Harrison)

Robot Bird Alights On Human Hand
First successful perching on a human hand. (re: Philip E. High)

CCTV Camera Watches, Attached LCD Tells You How To Behave
'It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.' (re: George Orwell)

Printable Liquid Solar Cells
'What's finally knocked the bottom out is this new solar electric paint.' (re: Larry Niven)

Can You Stake A Claim To An Asteroid?
'The law of filing on newly discovered asteroids was definite. Two steps were required. ' (re: Nat Schachner)

'Human Textiles' Woven From Donor Cells
First organ printing, now weaving with human cells. (re: Larry Niven)

Do You Hold Robots Morally Accountable?
How do people judge robots and their intentions? (re: Various)

Robotic Spider Weaves Its Web
Hopefully, not a tangled web. (re: Alastair Reynolds)

Robot Bartender (Or Waiter) From Carnegie Mellon
Those QR-2 robots, what will they do next? (re: Anthony Boucher)

Arkyd Spacecraft To Hunt Asteroid Platinum, Water
'This must be a golden planet—this little asteroid.' At least, that's what they are hoping. (re: Garrett P. Serviss)

sFly UAVs Swarm Together For SAR
Fascinating project from the European Union shows an autonomous 500g UAV. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Wavii Follows Your Selected News
SF writers have been fascinated with the idea of personalized news for a long time. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

BYD Qin Car Has Dashboard 'i' Robot
Don't fly your X-wing without one. (re: George Lucas)

SPARX Fantasy Game Helps With Depression
'And there in the next room by the sofa sat a familiar suitcase, that of his psychiatrist Dr. Smile.' (re: Philip K. Dick)

Tupac Hologram Performs With Snoop, Dre
'Pac's Thug Life, back from the dead. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Sonic Screwdriver From Dundee University
See the Top 11 Sonic Screwdriver Scenes! (re: Various)

Is Planetary Resources An Asteroid Mining Company?
'This must be a golden planet—this little asteroid.' (re: Garrett P. Serviss)

Cell Phones To See Through Walls
'They'd been trying to make a television set that would see through walls...' (re: Nat Schachner)

Solar Power Satellite via Arbitrarily Large Phased Array
'This was really free power, easy power, plentiful power.' (re: Clifford Simak)

Danceroom Spectroscopy Nano Dance
Make music by interacting with the quantum world. (re: John Brunner)

Audi E-Sound Gives Electric Cars A Voice
I seem to recall this idea from a Heinlein novel. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Plasma Flashlight Illuminates, Kills Bacteria
This device will be a boon to the paramedics who serve in remote areas. (re: Robert J. Sawyer)

Robonaut 2 Uses American Sign Language (ASL) on ISS
Robots that communicate with gestures may have practical applications. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Does China Have An Internet Kill Switch?
You never know when you might need one. (re: John Brunner)

Camouflage To Confound Face Recognition
'The wearer of a scramble suit was Everyman and in every combination.' (re: Philip K. Dick)

Computers Powered By Harvested Environmental Energy
'...the now famous Fottengill process.' (re: Lloyd Biggle, Jr.)

BAE System 'Bullet Proof Custard' Body Armor
'The pressure suit was soft and malleable under gentle pressures, such as walking, but instantly became rigid all over when something struck it.' (re: Larry Niven)

Google's Project Glass May Augment Your Reality
How close to production is this kind of product? (re: Charles Stross)

Evacuated Tube Transport Idea Is 200 Years Old This Year!
Take a look at the financial calculations behind this idea; one-tenth the cost of high-speed rail! (re: Robert Heinlein)

MIT's Smart Pebbles Duplicate 3D Shapes
'It is made up of tiny metal particles. A remote-controlled emulsion, as it were, with uniform center.' (re: Abraham Merritt)

Open Source Tricorder
'Insufficient facts always invite danger.' - Mr. Spock (re: Gene Roddenberry)

X-Ray Pulsar 'Beacons' To Guide Spacecraft
Celestial GPS for the solar system - and beyond! (re: George O. Smith)

Flexible E-Paper Finally Coming Out!
Finally - the floppy pad! No more hard pads! (re: Neal Stephenson)

School Kids In Brazil Now Wear 'Chipped' T-shirts
'Education does not transform the world.' Surveillance does, though. (re: Murray Leinster)

Robofish - To Europa!
It's a long way to Jupiter, so those robotic fish are going to need some help. (re: Michael Swanwick)

Dawn Spacecraft On A Star Trek Mission
'Dawn’s ambitious exploration of Vesta has been going beautifully' (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Exoplanets May Reach 'Warp Speed'
More interesting theories about rogue worlds. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Robot Cuts Hair, Sort Of
This multi-purpose robot just found a new purpose. (re: Don Wilcox)

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