Science Fiction in the News:
Science and Technology News

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)

Dual-Laser Sensing Like Star Trek Long Range Sensors
Mr. Spock, engage long-range sensors! (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Hand-Held Robot Operates On Man's Prostate
'In his slender hands he held a surgical instrument he had invented. It was a marvel!' (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

Of Course Robots Don't Need To Look Human
'Shape them so that they can best do just those things, with no parts left over.' (re: Anthony Boucher)

Designer Materials Possible With Designer Electrons
Science-fictional materials are on the way! (re: Various)

Lifebrowser Revists Your Past
The Lifebrowser - a rear-view mirror for your life. (re: Charles Stross)

NASA Team Camps On An Asteroid (Almost)
Will we ever go camping in space? Keep the dream alive! (re: Various)

Business Cards Give Way To Bump
The time-honored business practice goes digital. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Bactericidal Fabric Made From Silk
Coming to uniforms near you. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Enormous Ship Refuels From The Sun Video Update
That darned Death Star has to get its planet-busting energy from someplace. Now updated by NASA! (re: Jack Williamson)

Control Robot Planes With Hand Gestures!
Be careful waving at planes from now on. (re: Douglas Adams)

The KEN Diet - Eat Nothing And Love It!
So, are you thinking of Jem'Hadar or Meks? (re: Jack Vance)

'Facetime Facelift' Beautifies Video Chats
Always look your best - on Facetime. (re: Bruce Sterling)

Microsoft Universal Translator Uses Your Voice
It maintains all of your voice characteristics as you effortlessly speak other languages. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

myTaxi iPhone App May Transform Taxi Business
Let's start combining these modern developments to get the services we want. (re: Various)

Siri Dictation For iPad Like Asmiov's 'Transcriber'
'Nobody but some old drips would use key machines...' According to Arkady Darell, anyway (and soon, teenagers everywhere!) (re: Isaac Asimov)

Seatlle Police Drones Overhead Now
Soon, you'll be seeing this tech flying over every town in America. Or maybe you won't see it; they're pretty small. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Fracking Causes Ohio Earthquakes
Another report that blames fracking for earthquakes in areas that are typically free of naturally-occurring quakes. (re: Various)

$200K In Bitcoins Stolen
Wherever there are hard working gold miners, there are thieves. (re: Charles Stross)

Affective Autotutor, Emotion-Sensing Teaching Software
Be sure to bring a digital apple to give the computer teacher. (re: Issac Asimov)

3D Printed Clothing 'Escapism' Couture Collection
Someday you'll just get new clothing from the 3D fab machine in your closet. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Cheetah Robot Hits Record 18 MPH In Video
A new record for robots running on their own legs. With video. (re: William Gibson)

Futurist Agrees With Star Trek: DS9 On Job Destruction
It's a dramatic idea, but check the evidence. (re: Various)

Meat Farm Like Matrix, Daybreak And Blade - But For Chickens
I think this is an idea whose time has come... more than once. (re: Various)

Awww! It's A Robot Baby Roundup!
They're so cute! Imagine having one in your family, brother to your human children. (re: Henry Slesar)

Speechjammer To End Your 1st Amendment Rights
Try to express yourself now; it's technology with intended consequences. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Project Shellter 3D Prints Homes For Crabs
Amazing story of humans helping homeless sea creatures. (re: Vernor Vinge)

RIBA-II Robot Ready For Patients (and movies?)
Haven't I seen this picture before? (re: Various)

Handy Zero-G Cup
Serving tea in space is harder than you might think. (re: Murray Leinster)

More Nomad Planets Than Stars?
I don't suppose any of them are arranged in a Klemperer rosette? (re: Balmer and Wylie)

Carbon Nanotube Knife Like Cheese Slicer
Fascinating development in materials science, predicted by Clarke thirty years ago for sf fans. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Robot Fish Lead, Real Fish Follow
Real robot fish lead, and actual real fish follow or get out of the way. (re: Michael Swanwick)

Japanese Company To Build Space Elevator?
Establish an elevator system linking Earth to space! (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

DNA-Based Robots To Fight Cancer
Tiny robot warriors will do battle in your bloodstream sooner than you think. (re: Philip E. High)

Functional Transistor Is One Atom
Moore's Law... marches on. (re: Robert Heinlein)

DARPA Avatar Program Coming, But Will Soldiers Want To?
Will soldiers just want these for wargames? (re: Manly Wade Wellman)

Robotic Insect Pop-Up Origami Fabrication
Remarkable fabrication process for tinier and tinier robots. (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

CleanSpace One Goal: De-Orbit Space Debris
OK, earthlings: Let's get rid of space debris once and for all! (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

SLAM from CSAIL Lets Robots Explore Autonomously
To boldly go where robots have never gone... before. (re: Various)

Chinese Boy Sees In The Dark
Can he really see in the dark? It's a good story, regardless. (re: Jim and Ken Wheat)

Machines Talk More To Each Other
What do all of these machines have to say about us? I hope they just stick to business. (re: Frederik Pohl)

Sensory Substitution Device (Or Star Trek VISOR?)
Amazing device 'lights up' the visual cortex of the blind. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Archetype: Wake Up As Robot
'I can see my hand!' Wake up as a robot, in a film and in reality. Right now. (re: Various)

NEOShield Asteroid Deflector Project Funded By EU
'It is similar to deflector panels I've seen, Captain, but far more complicated.' (re: Miles Breuer)

Memory Improved By Direct Electrical Stimulation
Would you always keep the switch flipped on if you had this device installed? (re: Dave Cummins)

Elektrodress Treatment Suit For Nerve Disorders
You may wish to be assimilated into our technological fashion collective. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Zero Gravity Roller Coaster Coming
Do you long to escape the bonds of Earth's gravity? This extreme roller coaster could do the trick. (re: Niven and Barnes)

North Face (Or Snow Crash?) Avalanche Airbag Clothing
The Powder Guide ABS vest is just the thing for your active lifestyle, on and off the slopes. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Robonaut ISS Checkout Video
Amazing video of a teleoperated robot on the International Space Station; sf authors saw this a half-century ago. (re: James Blish)

Spidernaut, Orbital Construction Robot
Spider robots are designed to distribute the load over many feet. (re: Charles Sheffield)

Google Glasses With Heads Up Display Coming Soon?
Google certainly has the information network to back up these glasses, and make augmented reality ... a reality. (re: Charles Stross)

3D Printer Used To Make Transplant Jawbone
A permanent replacement was printed for reconstructive surgery. (re: Philip K. Dick)

We Live In A Space Cloud
SF writers are a little more concerned about space clouds than most astronomers. (re: Arthur Conan Doyle)

Nano Quadrotors Form Stephenson's Dog Pod Grid
If you haven't seen this video, it's a remarkable implementation of an sfnal idea. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Amazonian Fungus Eats Polyurethane
I guess I'd still like to know what the fungus breaks plastic down into. (re: Michael Crichton)

Kissenger The Kiss Messenger Robot Spreads Your Love
'Sensory stimulation through the tactile net, Man Forrester...' (re: Frederic Pohl)

Self-Guided Bullet Accurate Over One Mile
'The back half is all solid propellant. Valves for directional control ... look, it's all electronic.' (re: Michael Crichton)

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