NOROS-1 Chinese Italian Lunar Robot
Chinese and Italian researchers hard at work on a lunar exploration robot. (re: Various)

Invisibility Cloaks Seen As Possible With Metamaterials
Invisibility stories continue to appear; when do I get my cloaking device? (re: Ray Cummings)

DNA Fingerprint Database For Workers Gattaca-Style Proposed
NYC mayor Bloomberg proposes a compulsory national DNA database for workers - just like in Gattaca. (re: Andrew Niccol)

Space Elevator Downer
Space elevators going up, or going down - read this article and its references and decide for yourself. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Asimov's First Law Of Robotics Real-Life Beta
Japan makes a serious effort to make sure robots first do no harm. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Pimp My Heart EKG Bling
Pimp My Heart lets cardiologists go for the bling, dog. (re: Various)

Pierced Glasses - Extreme Eyewear
LASIK is extreme - this is just making good use of a piercing that you might have gotten anyway. (re: Various)

TileToy LED Puzzle And Jeff Noon's Randominoes
Ever heard of randominoes? Sounds like someone has made something pretty close. (re: Jeff Noon)

Intelligent Scarecrow Robot Has A Brain
Emerald city technical wizards give a scarecrow a brain. Okay, Florida engineering students created a robot scarecrow. (re: Various)

Heliodisplay M2i - Interactive Midair Touchscreen
The newest Heliodisplay offers interactive 'touch screen' features - but you don't actually touch the display that hangs in mid-air. So, it's actually a 'no-touch-screen...' (re: Frank Herbert)

EtchASound - Picture Your Voice
Hands-free Etch-A-Sketch in 3D; looks like great fun. (re: Various)

Chant Disruptor At Stadium Near You?
Here's how to cut that disruptive audience down to size. (re: Various)

SPOT-NOSED Nanobiosensors For Doctors
The electronic nose doesn't quite know, but soon will, based on this research. (re: Michael Crichton)

Ad Saturation Approaches 100 Percent
Do you think there might be too many advertisements in your life? Other people don't think so. (re: Various)

American Space Colony Art
Ah, the space colonies of my youth. They never built any, but the pictures are very nice. (re: Jack Williamson)

Origami Cell Phone Concept
Great concepts galore from a company called Inventables; I found one that is a twenty-year-old sf idea. (re: William Gibson)

Medical Nanotubes Need Opening? Ask Raquel Welch
How to uncork a medical nanotube - if only we could find a medical assistant the size of a bacterium. (re: Various)

Insbot Robot Cockroaches Make Friends And Influence... Roaches
Tiny robots with Dale Carnegie-style programming help scientists learn about animals that exhibit group behaviors. (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

Octarms - Robotic Tentacle Bot From Mars!
A robotic tentacle funded by DARPA proves adept at manipulating irregularly shaped (ie natural) objects; just like the Tripod tentacles from War of the Worlds. (re: H.G. Wells)

Metal-like Polymer Developed In South Korea
Who would ever think of flexible, extrudable plastic with the same properties as metal wire? SF authors, that's who. (re: Niven and Pournelle)

French Billboards Call Your Cellphone
Now, didn't I see a movie in which the billboards and store windows tried to speak to you personally? (re: Steven Spielberg)

EveR-1 Korean Android And The Mechanical Bride
In his chilling 1954 story The Mechanical Bride, Fritz Leiber wrote about encounter with an extremely realistic female android. (re: Fritz Leiber)

Everybody Will Be Kung Fu Fighting In New Game
Get off the couch and into the video - defy gravity without wires - use your own moves and your own weapons. (re: )

Amazing Robot Wrestling
Amazing wrestling robots have a variety of great take-down moves. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Invisibility Possible With Superlenses
Ah, the invisibility cloak once again... well, it doesn't appear because... you know. (re: Ray Cummings)

A-170 Video Lightsign Airship Brings Blade Runner Blimp To Sky Near You
The world of Bladerunner draws closer - the low-flying video ad blimps are ready 13 years ahead of schedule. (re: Ridley Scott)

DARPA Urban Challenge - KITT, Put Up Or Shut Up
Okay, KITT - it's time to come out of retirement and win this thing for Knight Industries. (re: Various)

Thor Shield Energy Weapon-Proof Fabric
An engineer with an interest in lightning protection systems comes up with a way to foil taser weapons and cattle prods. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Cylogic Smart Avenger Runaway Project
Just don't let Gene Simmons of KISS get one of these planned smart missiles - you saw what he did with smart bullets in Runaway. (re: Michael Crichton)

Logitech QuickCam Orbit MP Has Maximum Headroom
Science meets science fiction today as you can finally have the online look you wanted; face manicuring (like Bruce Sterling) or full-on avatar (like Max). (re: Bruce Sterling)

Porter 'Robots' For Baggage, If Not People
Anybody who is working on an automated solution to me carrying my bags through the airport gets an A for effort from me. (re: John Brunner)

Anti-Landmine Robotic Shoe
There really are anti-mine shoes; the latest suggestion involves using robotics. (re: )

Apple Apparently Working On Orwell's Telescreen
Now, Apple would never create a tool suitable for totalitarian governments - but here's what we could use it for. (re: George Orwell)

Robot Turtle Madeline Flipper Science
Cool robo-turtle executes complex manuevers effortlessly due to its flipper controls. (re: Various)

Mandadory Microchip Implants To Be Prohibited By Law
Want to make sure you are never implanted with a microchip against your will? Better move to Wisconsin. (re: Various)

CLEVER Car One Meter Wide
The CLEVER car is a zippy little prototype vehicle just one meter wide (re: Frank Herbert)

PocketCaster First Live Video Webcast From Cellphone
Now anyone can stream video around the world. (re: David Brin)

Mol Switch Project Nanoactuator Opens New Vistas
An amazing molecular magnetic switch bridges the gap between the biological and silicon worlds; this invention will make possible many other applications. (re: )

PixelOptics SuperVision Optimizes Your Sight
You may not be Superman, but SuperVision is closer than you think. The military get it first, then maybe at an optician near you. (re: Various)

Brainport Tongue Vision In Use By Navy SEALs
Can the military train you to see sonar like a dolphin with a tongue-based interface? Truth may not always be stranger than fiction - but this time it might be. (re: Various)

News E-Papers From Plastic Logic
Newspads and mediatrons, science fiction staples, are now making the prototyping rounds. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Russian Response To Possible Asteroid Impact
The Russians have been studying the problem of close asteroid approaches for years. (re: Niven and Pournelle)

Religion In Space
How can you face Mecca when circling the Earth every 90 minutes? Just one problem faced by Muslims in space. (re: Various)

HIPerWall Highly Interactive Parallelized Display Wall
Think you like your current display? This one might wrap all the way around your dorm room. (re: Ray Bradbury)

Retrotastic Mobile Office Of The Future
Nifty office concept; still looks a bit retro. (re: Various)

Bibliochaise Armchairlibrary
I could sit and read for a year straight in one of these. (re: Various)

Banned Xbox Commercial Flash Mob Homebrew
Not to be squashed by the bulk of Microsoft, dedicated xboxers use a flash mob to brew their own version of a banned commercial. Live. In public. (re: Larry Niven)

Invention Machine Evolved By Genetic Programming
Artificially intelligent machines design parts for NASA, binoculars and circuit designs. Your so-called creative job is next. (re: John M. Faucette)

Singularity Summit At Stanford
Must-attend summit at Stanford on the technological Singularity bearing down on all of us like a runaway train. (re: Vernor Vinge)

Synthehol Sought By Psychopharmacologists
Science-fictional alcohol without hangovers and cirrhosis may be within reach, says a UB prof. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Robot Nanny - The Fact, The Fiction
SF writers have been thinking about robot nannies (and other forms of automated child care) since at least WWII. This fall, Korea will have some in the home. (re: Philip K. Dick)

(re: )

Chameleon T-Shirts With Electrochromic Polymers
At last, William Gibson's polycarbon suit is starting to take shape - good news for all Panther Moderns. (re: William Gibson)

Trophy Active Defense System Not Quite A Force Field
Not exactly a force-field, ADS still acts like one. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Tunnel Cam Robot
Okay, the tunnel cam is not the Mole, let alone Cave Carson's Mighty Mole. But I can dream, can I not? (re: Niven and Pournelle)

HAL-5 Exoskeleton To Carry Mountain Climber
Exoskeletons helped humans raised in microgravity over come Earth's gravity in a 1968 novel; now they help people overcome gravity on Earth in real life. (re: Fritz Leiber)

Sonic Grenade Homebrew
Here's just the thing to wake up your roommate - and you can make one yourself! (re: Robert Heinlein)

Filmmaking Robot Has Roving Artistic Vision
Can a robot make a better movie than the junk shown in your local megacineplex? Here's a filmmaking robot taking its best shot at art. (re: Karen Traviss)

UAVs Invade Public Airspace
Unmanned surveillance drones that are capable of autonomous flight are being used in Iraq. One day, you will look up - and probably not see it overhead in your neighborhood. (re: Greg Bear)

Do-It-Yourself Microgravity Courtesy Of NASA
How can regular guys be more like those macho astronauts? NASA has found a way. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Programmable Soda - Ipifini's Choice-Enabled Packaging
SF short story nails this one; and it looks like a good consumer product. (re: Jeff Noon)

Eventful Timebrokers Your Future
Science fiction and culture merge in Eventful, a site on which sf writer Paul Di Fillipo's timebrokers would feel right at home. (re: Paul Di Fillipo)

Fabrican - Spray On Clothing
To change your look, just spray it on. It's clothing in a can - and Stanislaw Lem wrote about it in 1961. (re: Stanislaw Lem)

Artificial Gravity Generator Now Possible?
Scientists have sneered at artificial gravity generators for the last 75 years. These ESA-sponsored experiments may have generated the first artificial gravity fields. (re: Olaf Stapleton)

Radiation Aging - The Deadly Years In Space
Radiation is a problem outside of our Earth's friendly magnetic field. Accelerated aging could result. (re: John W. Campbell)

FLAVIIR Flapless Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Flapless aircraft are stealthier and more amenable to reliable automated control. (re: Various)

RI-MAN And Roujin-Z Robots: Elder Care Fact And Fiction
Hospital robots can go either way, according to sf writers and anime creators. Will we see both? (re: Frederik Pohl)

Spy Cameras Watch Spy Cameras In UK
In Britain, home of 1984, surveillance cameras are under surveillance by - surveillance cameras. (re: George Orwell)

RFID Sensor Tag Shower For Disasters
A snowstorm of RFID tags could help save lives in a disaster. (re: Robert Silverberg)

Methanol-Powered Robot Muscles - Bend It Like Bender
Researchers working on better muscles for prosthetic devices accidentally stumble on Matt Groenings robot creation. (re: Martin Caidin)

Moonquake-Proof Moonbases Needed?
Okay, who's been working on the problem of making sure that lunar habitats can withstand moonquakes? (re: Robert Heinlein)

Hybrid Insect MEMS Sought By DARPA For Bug Army
DARPA rejects previous efforts and exhorts scientists to really think different in it's insect cyborg army idea. (re: Various)

Eurotech Zypad Wrist Wearable PC Beats Tracy's
Calling all cars - the Zypad is available now! Not just a radio, but a Linux or Windows CE device. (re: Chester Gould)

Defending Against Harmful Nanotechnology
The winners of the Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award warned us about nanomachines, but at least half a century after hard-working sf authors did. (re: Maurice A. Hugi)

'Tricorder' Ready For Mars Rover This Year
A little pocket-sized device that can instantly determine the composition of any material? Sci-fi hogwash! Or is it? (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Autotelematic Spider Bots
These spider bots are much friendlier looking than the killer-spider-robots seen earlier this week. (re: Michael Crichton)

E.T. Mouse Hearts Glow
Amazing fluorescing mouse embryo hearts fill researcher hearts with that special glow. E.T. too. (re: Steven Spielberg)

Laser-Powered Aircraft Model Tested
A nifty laser-powered model plane was tested in Osaka, Japan earlier this week. (re: Niven and Pournelle)

RISE Robot: Six-Legged BIODYNOTICS Runaway
RISE robots from DARPA come uncomfortably close to the killer-spider-robots from a 1986 movie. (re: Michael Crichton)

Philips 100-Inch TV Parlor
Ray Bradbury warned us about big TVs; you can just about get one now. (re: Ray Bradbury)

Eco-Be! Mini Robot From Citizen
Tiny mechanical mouse-like robots straight out of the 1940's created from watch parts. (re: Maurice A. Hugi)

BigDog Quadruped Robot Update
Good progress on Ray Bradbury's mechanical hound from Fahrenheit 451. (re: Ray Bradbury)

Shark Cyborgs On DARPA Remote control
In those Jaws movies, the shark seemed like it was out to get you. DARPA makes this dream come true. (re: William Gibson)

True 3D Plasma Display
Researchers demonstrate a 3D display that does not depend on binocular eye tricks - and real plasma in mid-air! (re: Edmund Hamilton)

'Protonic Storms' Unleashed On DNA In Space
Should astronauts watch out for the fury of protonic storms? (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

PKD's Scramble Suit In A Scanner Darkly Movie Trailer
The new trailer for Philip K. Dick's novel has some cool views of one of my favorite items - the scramble suit. (re: Philip K. Dick)

LongPen By Unotchit: Margaret Atwood's Telautograph For Book Signing
Science fiction writer Margaret Atwood has created a device that makes real one of Hugo Gernsback's dreams of almost a century ago. (re: Hugo Gernsback)

MIT Battery Research To Enable 'Electric Phaetons'
John Jacob Astor dreamed of electric cars that would serve us in 1894; all he needed was a really good battery technology. (re: John Jacob Astor)

Quantum Telecloning And 'The Enemy Within'
It happened once to Captain Kirk by accident; now scientists have demonstrated that they can do it on purpose. Now that's progress. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Skiers Get d3o-Based 'Impact Suits'
Looks like the science-fictional 'impact suit' of the 1970's comes true in 2006. (re: D. Gerrold and L. Niven)

US Company Implants Chips In Workers
Well, it's finally happened - US workers get chipped like dogs. (re: William Gibson)

Pulsed Energy Projectile EMPs Your Nervous System
PEPs use plasma to electromagnetically pulse your nervous system into thinking something bad is happening. And you can fine-tune it. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Multi-Touch Interaction Overlord Control Screen
Use both hands and all your fingers with this interface, just like Earths' Overlords. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

'Antigravity' Propulsion System Proposed
Hope blooms for space enthusiasts that it might be possible to accelerate space craft to speeds approaching that of light without crushing the contents of the craft. If it works, it could be even better than apergy. (re: Percy Greg)

NASA Strategy For Urban Heat island NYC
NASA has strategies to help small urban heat islands like NYC. Who can help a species with a 'planet' heat island? Larry Niven, that's who. (re: Larry Niven)

Toxoplasma Gondii Parasite Mind Control
How could a tiny parasite influence the behavior of an entire organism? (re: Robert Heinlein)

StarChase Tracking Tag And Star Wars Homing Beacon
The Los Angeles police are taking a page from Obiwan Kenobi's book on how to chase suspects; hopefully, they will stay out of asteroid fields. (re: George Lucas)

Liquid Mirror Telescope For Moon Studied By NASA
Liquid Mirror Telescopes are cool enough - but putting one on the moon? (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

Hungry? Print Yourself Some Bacon
If scientists can just about print organs, I can certainly print myself some bacon. (re: Frank Herbert)

Games Of Tomorrow Built By Players Wiki-Style
The world's megacorporations are counting on you to do the work in the next round of online game creation. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Concrete Canvas - Inflatable Concrete Buildings
This great portable shelter lets you create housing anywhere - even if a housing development would look like hundreds of loaves in a baker's window. (re: Larry Niven)

Honda Accord ADAS Heinlein Wannabe
We are SO close to Heinlein's Camden Speedster. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Imation Flash Wristband: Music And Medical Informatics Miracle
Hey, kill two birds with one stone with this cool item. (re: Larry Niven)

Crustaceans Help Build NASA's Exploration Skills
Can the humble crayfish teach NASA anything new? Turns out they've been evolving these methods for millions of years. (re: Charles Stross)

Russian Moon Base Mining Camp
The Russians steal a page from Ray Cummings' Brigands of the Moon and look for rare materials on the moon. (re: Ray Cummings)

SuitSat Casual Day Satellite Update
Russian brainstorming session leads to deploying space suits as satellites. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

AMANDA May Find Probes To Other Dimensions
The AMANDA neutrino array team may have some positive results in the use of high-energy neutrinos in proving the existence of higher dimensions. (re: James Blish)

MASTOR Provides Real-Time Speech Translation
Real-time speech translation from one language to another; is the world ready for one of Gernsback's 1911 language rectifiers? (re: Hugo Gernsback)

'Electric Sheep' Gaining On Real Pets
Cute, cuddly robotic pets bring humans some of the same benefits as real pets. Electric sheep, anyone? (re: Philip K. Dick)

NanoTerminator Prevents Annoying Space Debris Build-Up
The journal Science puts out more predictions on space junk; manga author already has the answer. (re: Makoto Yukimura)

Dynasty Trusts Lively Topic For Corpsicles
Cold cash for corpsicles; before freezing, cryonauts put assets on ice. (re: Larry Niven)

Anti-Adhesive Surfaces Of Plants
The natural world is the source of some of the best 'thinking' in materials science. (re: Clifford Simak)

The Real ICT Scent Collar
Here's the real scent collar. (re: Frank Herbert)

Skiing That Soft Lunar Powder
Skiing on the moon? Heinlein thought you could do it, and so do the Apollo astronauts. (re: Robert Heinlein)

XPod Activity And Emotion Aware Mobile Music Player
A sensitive iPod? These researchers have a player that knows what you want before you do. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Soldiers Trained To Obey Odors With Scent Delivery Device
Soldiers must obey their odors - yes, that's right, odors. Maybe they should call them 'oders'. (re: Frank Herbert)

Lucent DVR Sleep Detector
Robert Heinlein anticipated Lucent technologies by forty-five years on this one. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Ratheon Swimmer Denial
Divers beware; Raytheon has your (pulse and frequency) number. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Algae To Clean Atmosphere
Atmospheric cleansing by means of carefully selected algae has been suggested before. (re: Niven and Pournelle)

Sony Reader Electronic Paper Book
Sony tries again with the Sony Reader - much improved DRM over its lockdown predecessor the LIBRIe. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

DARPA Radar Scope Can Sense Thru Walls
New DARPA device senses you breathing through a twelve inch thick concrete wall. (re: Frank Herbert)

Dynalifter Prototype Ready For Flight
Amateur aircraft builders create the prototype for giant heavy lifter airships. (re: Jerry Pournelle)

Air Force Ready For Space War
The USAF is ready for Space Wars - maybe even Ender's Game. They're looking for game designers. (re: Orson Scott Card)

Self-Steering Buses In Cambridge
Self-steering cars and buses are coming! (re: Isaac Asimov)

Black MA-1 Jacket Written Into Existence By William Gibson
William Gibson writes it, and they make one for him. Damn. (re: William Gibson)

National Archives And Dune's House Records
Who's thought about records spanning milennia? Frank Herbert, that's who. (re: Frank Herbert)

USB Memory 'Swiss'
Karen Traviss thinks about the USB Memory Swiss Army knife a year in advance of the press release. (re: Karen Traviss)

Cormorant Submarine/Sea Launched MPUAV
The Cormorant submarine and sea launched vehicle concept may remind you of science fiction glories past. (re: Gerry Anderson)

Palm Vein Authentication First, Then Book
No more worries about lost library cards; just flash your palm at the reader. (re: William Gibson)

TREETENTS And House Trees
Interesting realization of the pod-like dwellings described generations ago by Jack Vance. (re: Jack Vance)

Air Warrior Microclimatic Cooling Garments Tested By Army
The Army is testing personal cooling vests for soldiers in Iraq; Philip K. Dick suggested them in the sixties. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Honey Bees Can Recognize You!
Will trained honey bees be the next thing in face recognition and security technology? (re: Frank Herbert)

Fantastic Voyage Of Self-assembling Peptide Nanofibers
Researchers write a sequel to the sixties film. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Tweezer Magnifier Available Now (Bush Robots - Not)
What will they think of next? As my eyes age, I need this. (re: Robert Heinlein)

USB Bible Tougher Than Filament OC Bible
More durable than the filament paper book; good for space travellers. (re: Frank Herbert)

Robotic Space Spiders To Crawl Sub-Orbital Web
Very cool upcoming space launch, in which minisatellites hold out a web while small space spider robots crawl in microgravity. (re: Charles Sheffield)

Terasem Conference On Law Of Transhuman Persons
This past weekend, the First Annual Colloquium on the Law of Transhuman Persons took place in Florida (re: Larry Niven)

Crickets Now Have 'Holodeck'
Crickets get theirs first, thanks to helpful humans. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Implanted Biothermal RFID Chips May Warn Of Avian Flu
Digital Angel, which makes VeriChips for humans, suggests using its thermal biosensing chips to check chickens for avian flu. (re: William Gibson)

Robotic Sentry Gun From USMechatronics
Two brothers build an autonomous robotic sentry gun as a summer project. (re: Michael Crichton)

Taipei 101 Tower Causing Earthquakes?
Has the world's tallest skyscraper caused quakes in a normally stable zone? (re: William Alden)

Virtual Air Guitar Totally Rocks, Dude
Awesome virtual air guitar hack lets others hear what you've been playing for years. (re: John Brunner)

d3o-based RibCap: Flexible-Rigid Beanie-Helmet For Snowsports
It's a helmet! No, it's a soft beanie cap! You're both right, kids - its the Ribcap with d3o. (re: Gerrold/Niven)

AMouse: Bradbury's Robot Mice Get Real Whiskers
At last, Ray Bradbury's robotic cleaning mice are coming closer - this bot has real mouse whiskers. (re: Ray Bradbury)

Hayabusa Spacecraft Makes Asteroid Landing
Craft lands on an asteroid just 65 years after Robert Heinlein described it in a story. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Space Aliens: The 'Mother' Of All Hallucinations?
What do so-called 'abductees' see when they describe that big head alien guy? A psychologist weighs in. (re: Various)

ANPR Cams - Britain's Roadside Big Brother
The UK's ANPR cameras will log the movement of every vehicle on the roads. (re: Robert Heinlein)

T-Rot Thinking Robot Tends Bar, Chats
Finally, a real live bartending robot, who will mix and hand you your drink and listen to your troubles. (re: Harry Harrison)

Amazon Mechanical Turk - Humans Help Slow Computers
It turns out that there are still a few things that humans are good for, as far as computers are concerned. (re: Amitav Ghosh)

AI Software 'Robot' Lawyers Next Year
Software lawyers from Brin novel are just around the corner. (re: David Brin)