Science Fiction in the News:
Science and Technology News

GMO Houseplant Cleans Your Air
Removes compounds too small to be captured by a HEPA filter. (re: Gregory Benford)

Nova Meat Can 3D Print Your Dinner
Printing out chicken nuggets. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

MIT Scientists Create 'Peek-a-Boo Prober' From Jetsons
Well, George, it's the latest thing. (re: Various)

Wound Healing With Wearable Nanogenerators
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to ... erase the other internal-external damage.' - Frank Herbert, 1972. (re: Frank Herbert)

Flying Dragon Robot Transforms In Mid-Air
Terrific prototype video. (re: Various)

Negative Matter Fluid Theorized In New Paper
'Of course, being negative matter, when you push it, it comes toward you..' - Robert Forward, 1992. (re: Robert Forward)

Grow Structures Upon Planetfall - Myco-Architecture
'They'll also start pulling in gases and liquids from the local atmosphere...' - Greg Bear, 2015. (re: Greg Bear)

MXene Hydrogel Skin For Robots Flexes And Senses
'The plastex swam and whirled like boiling toothpaste...' - JG Ballard, 1962. (re: J.G. Ballard)

EXPLORER, The First Total-Body Scanner
'The object is built up of an infinite series of plane layers, at the focus of the ray...' - Jack Williamson, 1930. (re: Jack Williamson)

UK Police AI To Stop Criminals Before They Strike
'... the computing mechanisms that studied and restructured the incoming material.' - Philip K. Dick, 1956. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Sonitus Audio Interface Positioned Beyond The Noise
'... an instrument having relatively small bit pieces adapted to be gripped between the teeth.' - Hugo Gernsback, 1923. (re: Hugo Gernsback)

Volvo's Self-Driving Mining Trucks
'A procession of automatic ore carts was racing over the bleak slag' - Philip K. Dick, 1955 (re: Philip K. Dick)

Audi Pop.Up Autonomous Electric Flying Car
'The cab was an egg-shaped bubble of light metals and plastics...' - James Blish, 1957. (re: James Blish)

Music Not Impossible (MNI) Vibrotactile Wearable Experience
Don't you want to experience the 'feely' effects? (re: Aldous Huxley)

Chinese Face Recognition Mistakes Bus Ad For Jaywalker
'... the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell.' - Schachner and Zagat, 1931. (re: Schachner and Zagat)

A Look Back At Apollo's Emergency Escape Vehicle
'A simple mechanism... it drove the iron ball through space like a ship.' - Jack Williamson, 1933. (re: Jack Williamson)

InMotion Glide 3 Electric Unicycle For The Last Mile
'...gyro-stabilized on a single wheel.' - Robert Heinlein, 1940. (re: Robert Heinlein)

China's Social Credit System - A Facebook-1984 Mashup
'Prestige, face, mana, repute, glory: the Sirenese word is strakh.' - Jack Vance, 1976. (re: Jack Vance)

Musk Declares Tesla Supercharger Capacity Will Double By Next Year
'Recharge the batteries... in almost every town and village...'- John Jacob Astor IV, 1894. (re: John Jacob Astor IV)

Drywall Robot Looking For Sheetrock
Sheetrockers have sure changed since my day. Speaking as someone who as done this, I welcome robots. (re: Michael Crichton)

Ford's Autonomous Cabs 'Transportation As A Service'
'He was glad to crawl into his autocab and close the cover.' - Robert Heinlein, 1951. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Sex In Driverless Cars? Updated With Video!
'...admirable for petting.' - David H. Keller, 1935. (re: David H. Keller)

Amazing Kepler Space Telescope Decommissioned By NASA
'Thus it came about that the search for a planetiferous sun... was not unduly prolonged...' - Doc Smith, 1934. (re: Doc Smith)

ODYSSEUS Solar-Powered Stratospheric Plane Flies Forever
'The planes flew continuously, twenty-four hours a day...' - EB White, 1950. (re: EB White)

Augmented and-or Virtual Reality Shoes From Google
'The auto-treadmill's bumps and gullies matched whatever terrain the goggles showed me...' - David Brin, 1994. (re: David Brin)

Soon, Your Tesla Will Follow You Like A Pet
'... follow him as faithfully as a well-trained hound.' - John Brunner, 1975. (re: John Brunner)

Chinese Watrix Gait Recognition Watching You Always
'... those pesky gait-recognition cameras.' - Cory Doctorow, 2008. (re: Cory Doctorow)

FlexPai Foldable Phone By Royole
'...A paper thin polycarbon screen unfurled.' - William Gibson, 1986. (re: William Gibson)

Oh Yes, We're Building The Rotating Tower In Dubai
'Give me an old-fashioned tetragon on a central pivot every time.' - Frank Herbert, 1972. (re: Frank Herbert)

Bioreactor Helps Legless Frogs Get Their Jump Back
'An alien drug... Used by an insect race... It can repair bones and organs. It can grow new tissue." - Clifford Simak, 1961 (re: Clifford Simak)

Xinhua AI Anchor Puts CGI Face To Automated News
'...a congeries of software agents.' - William Gibson, 1996. (re: William Gibson)

Wirewax Watching You Watch, Adjusting Your Experience
'He adjusted the n, the r and b knobs, and hopefully anticipated a turn for the better...' - Philip K. Dick, 1964. (re: Philip K. Dick)

LawGeex AI Beats 20 Top Lawyers
'The Law Society has strict rules on the use of pseudo-intelligent software - terrified of putting... its members out of work.' - Greg Egan, 1991. (re: Greg Egan)

ROAM Robotics Skiing Exoskeleton
'The real genius in the design is that you don't have to control the suit; you just wear it...' - Robert Heinlein, 1959. (re: Robert Heinlein)

MIT Headset Lets You Communicate Without Speaking
'The subvocal read nerve signals, letting her enter words by just beginning to will them...' - David Brin, 1990. (re: David Brin)

Exploring Oceans Across The Solar System
'Black liquid flashed past the turbot’s infrared eyes.' - Michael Swanwick, 2002. (re: Michael Swanwick)

SWEEPER Robot Peter Piper Picking Peppers
'... little machines, that went from plant to plant, apparently on caterpillar tracks, cutting off the ripe fruit.' Otfrid von Hanstein, 1935. (re: Otfrid von Hanstein)

Oil from Algae - Can It Be Done?
'We dump everything that's waste into the tanks, pump the oil off the top.' - Hal Clement, 1950. (re: Hal Clement)

Moving Whole Planets, Revisited
There was a lot of work done on this idea over the years. (re: EE Doc Smith)

Disney Keeps Backups Of Star Wars Franchise Actors
'She is a personality-construct, a congeries of software agents...' - William Gibson, 1996. (re: William Gibson)

Farming In Space Starts With Mycorrhiza
'The inner leaves were beginning to curl faster than the outer leaves.' - Robert Heinlein, 1949. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Jaguar I-Pace Audible Vehicle Alert System For EVs
'Of course not a vehicle moved by means of internal explosions of a derivative of rock oil...' - Robert Heinlein, 1985. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Autonomous 'Fiberbots' Weave Large Structures
'It extrudes material like a spider.' - Charles Sheffield, 1979. (re: Charles Sheffield)

Birds Aren't Real - Wake Up, California! (With Bird Watching Guide)
'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)

Self-Healing Material Pulls Carbon Out Of The Air
'... could seal the punctures.' - Raymond Z. Gallun, 1951. (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

IRL Glasses Block Screens, Limit Vision To Real Life
'If you couldn't see the ads, how would you know what was fashionable?' - John Varley, 1977. (re: John Varley)

Testing The Single-Person Spacecraft
'...the lower part of the suit was simply a rigid cylinder.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1952. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Shapeshifting Materials Transform By Light
'Its lines wavered, flowed, and then painfully reformed.'- Philip K. Dick, 1957. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Fully Automated Farm Iron Ox Hydroponics
'Had these machines in some incredible fashion been provided with brains?' - Otfrid von Hanstein, 1935 (re: Maria Moravski)

BrainNet Social Network Of Brains
'I used my implant to tell MILLIE what we wanted and she took care of it' - Pournelle and Niven, 1981. (re: Pournelle and Niven)

Phil Nuyttnn's City Under The Sea
''Under the lower roof there was no water, but a clear and luminous atmosphere...' - Andre Laurie, 1895. (re: Andre Laurie)

IONITY Opens First 10 Fast-Charging Stations
'Recharge the batteries... in almost every town and village...'- John Jacob Astor IV, 1894. (re: John Jacob Astor IV)

Superstrong Multilayer Metal-Graphene Composite Material
Negligible increase in weight increased material strength by hundreds of times. (re: Frank Herbert)

Deepfakes Imperil Democracy (George Orwell, Right Again)
'All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.' - George Orwell, 1948. (re: George Orwell)

String Art Courtesy Of Robot Artist
The number of different ways to span a thread between a larger number of hooks is astronomical. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Still Wondering If You'd Work For A Robot Boss?
'This is all coming to you courtesy of the simstim unit wired into your deck, of course.' (re: William Gibson)

World's First Autonomous Tram In Germany
What's it like for autonomous trams when they're turned off at night? (re: Isaac Asimov)

Sleeep PRO Earplug For Maximum Rest
'Merton... placed the electrodes of the sleep-inducer on his forehead.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1963. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Inspired By Japan, Nap Pods For Hajj
It's always a good time for a nap. (re: Larry Niven)

Amphibio 3D Printed Gill Shirt
'... we can descend and live down there at one of those year-round aquatic resorts.' - Philip K. Dick, 1966. (re: Philip K. Dick)

How Do You Put An Asteroid Into Earth Orbit? Carefully!
'...she would have to be coaxed by another series of pats into a circular orbit.' - Robert Heinlein, 1939. (re: Robert Heinlein)

PD Aerospace Space Plane By 2023
'The sleek, tapered space shuttle lay immobile upon the private landing field...' - Frederic Arnold Kummer, Jr., 1940. (re: Frederic Arnold Kummer, Jr)

Foldimate Folds Your Clothes Perfectly
Look ma, my room is clean! I can hear you now. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Robots Help People Get Dressed, As Predicted In 1931
Yes, people of the future, robots will dress you. (re: Schachner and Zagat)

International Space Station Leak Plugged - With Finger
'These tag-alongs search out stray leaks' - Robert Heinlein, 1948. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Robot Snake Flies, Fights Fires
Just a prototype, but shows real promise. (re: Emmett McDowell)

IPAL Chinese Robot Babysitter
'But Nanny is different...' - Philip K. Dick, 1955. (re: Philip K. Dick)

ZKZM-500 LASER Assault Rifle
'The Iranian reached back into the locker and got a pair of laserifles.' - Poul Anderson, 1966. (re: Poul Anderson)

LA Subway Scanner, As Seen In 'Total Recall'
'I'm afraid to tell you this Mr. Quaid, but you have suffered a schizoed embolism...' (re: Philip K. Dick)

Sion Electric Car Covered With Solar Panels
'It drew its power from six square yards of sunpower screens on its low curved roof.' - Robert Heinlein, 1940. (re: Robert Heinlein)

PAL-V Liberty Flying Helicopter Car
'...lifted themselves to skimming flight upon whirling helicopters." - Jack Williamson, 1931. (re: Jack Williamson)

Space Drones - UK's Effective Space To Launch Rocket Tugs
'Twenty rocket tugs towed it from its Earth hangar out into space.' - Nat Schachner, 1937. (re: Nat Schachner)

DIY Autonomous Robot Detects Trash
'The search-bug detached itself and rolled forward.' - Philip K. Dick (re: Philip K. Dick)

Ancient Russian Walking Excavator Would Be Perfect RV
I don't need it to go fast, it just needs to amble along. (re: Jack Vance)

ELROI Satellite 'License Plate'
Robert Heinlein was thinking about this in 1941. (re: Robert Heinlein)

When Robots Beg For Their Lives
"Just what do you think you're doing... Dave.' (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Do You Still Want A Folding Screen Phone?
'A paper thin polycarbon screen unfurled...' - William Gibson, 1986. (re: William Gibson)

'Snapchat Dysmorphia' Now A Thing, Say Plastic Surgeons
'The program raced up the screen one scan line at a time, subtly smoothing, deleting and coloring.' - Bruce Sterling, 1985. (re: Bruce Sterling)

Quiet Electric Cars Law Finalized By US Transportation Department
'... a sound tape to supply the noise'- Robert Heinlein, 1985. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Drone Assassin Fails To Kill Venezuelan President
'The spotter descends, and we think it searches the vicinity, looking for the victim's face...' - Daniel Suarez, 2012. (re: Daniel Suarez)

Stick-On Tape Speakers, As Predicted By Bruce Sterling
Flexible tape speakers, someday. (re: Bruce Sterling)

Bezos Invites You To New Life In Off-World Colonies
'A new life awaits you!' (re: Ridley Scott)

Amazon's Rekognition System Sees Criminals In Congress
'... the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell.' - Schachner and Zagat, 1931. (re: Schachner and Zagat)

Build Your Own Space Suit For Cheap
'I'm going to pump the air from this room... so that the interior will be like airless and pressure-less space.'- Otto Willi Gail, 1929. (re: Otto Willi Gail)

CIMON Space Sidekick For Weary Astronauts
I welcome our floating robotic assistants. (re: Philip Frances Nowlan)

SRI MicroFactory Of Microrobots Recalls Dick's Autofac
'Microscopic machinery, smaller than ants... constructing something...' - Philip K. Dick, 1955. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Embark Autonomous Trucks Still Need Humans
'...it resembled conventional human-operated transportation vehicles, but with one exception -- there was no driver's cabin.' - Philip K. Dick, 1955. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Rolls Royce 'Cockroach-Sized' Repair Robots To Crawl Inside Engines
'As if swarms of tiny animals were busily scurrying...' - Stanislaw Lem, 1954. (re: Stanislaw Lem)

Bot Tweets Venmo Drug Transactions
An alarming item to find on your twitter feed. (re: John Brunner)

'Power Clothing' - The Seismic 'Super Suit'
'The real genius in the design is that you don't have to control the suit; you just wear it...' - Robert Heinlein, 1959. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Rolls Royce eVTOL Flying Car
'The cab came floating down out of the sky at the intersection.' - James Blish, 1955. (re: James Blish)

Ontario Starts Guaranteed Minimum Income
'Earned by just being born.'- Philip Jose Farmer, 1967. (re: Philip Jose Farmer)

Is There Life In Outer Space? Will We Recognize It?
'The antennae of the Life Detector atop the OP swept back and forth...' - Frank Herbert, 1958. (re: Frank Herbert)

Space Traumapod For Surgery In Spacecraft
' It was a ... coffin, form-fitted to Nessus himself...' - Larry Niven, 1972. (re: Larry Niven)

Tesla Augmented Reality Hypercard
'The hypercard is an avatar of sorts.' - Neal Stephenson, 1992. (re: Neal Stephenson)

A Space Ship On My Back
''Darn clever, these suits,' he murmured.' - Jack Williamson, 1933. (re: Jack Williamson)

Biomind AI Doctor Mops Floor With Human Doctors
'My aim was just not to lose by too much.' - Human Physician participant. (re: Larry Niven)

Fuli Bad Dog Robot Is 'Auspicious Raccoon Dog' Bot
Bad dog, Fuli. Bad dog. (re: Ray Bradbury)

Las Vegas Humans Ready To Strike Over Robots
'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.' - John Twelve Hawks, 2014. (re: John Twelve Hawks)

You'll Regrow That Limb, One Day
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.' - Frank Herbert, 1972. (re: Frank Herbert)

Elon Musk Seeks To Create 1941 Heinlein Speedster
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.' - Robert Heinlein, 1941. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Somnox Sleep Robot - Your Sleepytime Cuddlebot
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too. (re: Larry Niven)

Real-Life Macau or Ghost In The Shell
Life imitates art imitates life. (re: Masamune Shirow)

Has Climate Change Already Been Solved By Aliens?
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.' - Larry Niven, 1970. (re: Larry Niven)

First 3D Printed Human Corneas From Stem Cells
Just what we need! Lots of spare parts. (re: Larry Niven)

VirtualHome: Teaching Robots To Do Chores Around The House
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.' Robert Heinlein, 1956. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) Workshop
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century. (re: Jules Verne)

Nanorobots Roam Your Bloodstream, Cleaning It
Too bad they won't have lasers, though... (re: Isaac Asimov)

Galini 3D Printed Sleeping Pod Tiny Houses
'The houses are prefabricated units...' - Clifford Simak, 1952. (re: Clifford Simak)

MIT Boffins Create Psychopath AI On Purpose
There's a lesson in this for neural net AI engineers everywhere. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Skin Electronics 3D Printed
'June's body is a tracery of lambent lines, like some arcane capillary circuitry...' - Paul Di Filippo, 1985 (re: Paul Di Filippo)

Artificial Sensory Neurons For Prosthetics, Robots
Great for humans and robots! (re: Roger Zelazny)

China Uses Artificial Intelligence To Grade Student Papers
Looks like the City Fathers are starting to take over China's education system. (re: James Blish)

Electronic Tongues Will Rule The Kitchen
'Install taste buds in the end of one tentacle...' - Anthony Boucher, 1943 (re: Anthony Boucher)

Self-Healing Circuits From Carnegie Mellon
'It even had an inter-skin layer of gum that could seal the punctures...'- Raymond Z. Gallun, 1951. (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

Swarm Of Mindless Robots Works Together
'Very tiny pseudo insects that... can unite to form a superordinate system.' - Stanislaw Lem, 1954 (re: Stanislaw Lem)

SpotMini Robot Dog, Autonomous And On Sale In 2019
Great, an autonomous slamhound. (re: William Gibson)

RoboFly Is Laser-Powered, Adorable
Don't swat this fly! (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

MSG Sphere Las Vegas, ala Star Wars
'The smoky globe, hung in the vault, was shot with colored light...' - Samuel R. Delany, 1966. (re: Samuel R Delany)

Tetraplegics Dominate Avatar Races
Well, just speaking brain-to-computer... (re: Pournelle and Niven)

MIT Ampli Blocks Build Biomedical Devices
Damn it Spock, I'm a doctor not an engineer! (re: Gene Roddenberry)

UberAIR Asks For Skytaxi Landing Prototypes
I'd rather just call one to my front yard, please. (re: Various)

Boring Tunnel Almost Ready
Your underground future is almost here! (re: Various)

Handheld Human Skin Printer
It outputs a thin wad of uniflesh. (re: Frank Herbert)

Healthy Fast Food Courtesy Of Robot Chefs
'The electric cook was stirring empty nothing in a pan, with a zeal worthy a dozen eggs.' - Elizabeth Bellamy, 1899. (re: Elizabeth Bellamy)

Mass Production Of In Vitro Meat From One Sample
They're Assimilating Our Culture, That's What They're Doing (re: Larry Niven)

Amazing 'Hybrid' Solar-Powered Sea Slug Does Photosynthesis
Thank goodness for Star Trek. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Retinal Prosthesis Uses Organic Printing Inks
We can rebuild you - well, your eyes, maybe. (re: Frank Herbert)

Should You Submit Your DNA To A Database?
Consumer DNA services are often inaccurate. (re: Andrew Niccol)

Squid-Like Robots Soon To Be 3D Printable
'It was a chemotactic artificial jellyfish designed to slither...' Rucker and Sterling, 1994. (re: Rucker/Sterling)

Humans Evolve Deep Diving Abilities
Sounds like '60s sci-fi to me. (re: Irwin Allen)

Researchers Create Bowls, Coils, Ripples Of Living Tissue
'... biological robots were not living creatures.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1972. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

IBM's Grain Of Sand Computer
'Our ancestors... thought to make the very sand beneath their feet intelligent...' - Stanislaw Lem, 1965. (re: Stanislaw Lem)

Liquid Metal Shape-Changing 'Soft Robotics'
'A mimetic poly-alloy... 'What the hell does that mean?'' John Cameron, 1991. (re: Philip K. Dick)

The Hammock Caravan And Italo Calvino's Octavia
'Now I will tell you how Octavia, the spider-web city, is made.' (re: Italo Calvino)

Super-Resolution Microscopy Provides '4D' Views
View the magnified interior of living cells. (re: James Hogan)

Have I Seen The Tesla Roadster Story Before?
'Only it wasn't a vessel. It was an automobile...' - Theodore Sturgeon, 1941. (re: Theodore Sturgeon)

Watch 'Do You Trust This Computer' For Free Today
Thanks for making this available, Elon. (re: Various)

Self-Driving Car Ticketed
This just missed making my day. (re: Various)

Elon Musk Tweets Versions Of Clarke's Operation Cleanup
'Fortunately, the old orbital forts were superbly equipped for this task.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1978. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Burner Generates Temporary Phone Numbers
'Interesting phone system he's got, by the way...' - John Varley, 1984. (re: John Varley)

Walmart’s Autonomous Robot Bees
Are you allergic to autonomous robot bees? (re: Various)

EA Created AI That Taught Itself To Play Battlefield
Harmless fun for computer scientists. (re: Keith Laumer)

Is Teleportation A Death Sentence?
'A long trail of dead, he thought, left across the stars...' - Clifford Simak, 1963. (re: Clifford Simak)

New Brain Scanner Lets You Move Around
'In Bob Arctor's living room his thousand dollar custom-quality cephscope crafted by Altec...' - Philip K. Dick, 1977. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Can An Entire Brain Be Simulated In A Computer?
'The miles of relays and photocells had given way to the spongy globe of platinum iridium about the size of the human brain.' - Isaac Asimov, 1941. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Physicists Try To Turn Light Into Matter
If E=mc squared, then... m=E/c squared! (re: John W. Campbell)

Save Your Brain's Connectome, Upload Yourself Elsewhere
'You've got remote storage. How regular is the update?' - Richard Morgan, 2003. (re: Richard Morgan)

TMS Decreases Belief In God, Increases Belief In Immigrants
'... Setting up the same currents, the same basic ideas, in them all.' - Edmond Hamilton, 1938. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

Loomo Mini Transporter Robot Companion You Ride On
'Slowly the [robot] horse raised its head, wiggled its ears, blinked twice, gave a tentative whinny.' - Christopher Stasheff, 1969. (re: Christopher Stasheff)

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