 |
Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
|
 |
Ford's In-Car Ads From Billboards
When I was just a lad admiring their Mustang convertibles, Ford had the following slogan: Ford Has A Better Idea (tm).
This time, I'm not so sure.
Ford has apparently patented a system that equips cars with sensors that can read billboards, scanning signs of all kinds, and then display relevant advertising messages inside your car on the dashboard display.
I'm pretty sure Philip K. Dick had a nightmare of similar proportions. In his 1964 novel The Simulacra, Dick envisions ads as annoying insects - commercial flies - that come right inside your car:
Something sizzled to the right of him. A commercial, made by Theodorus Nitz, the worst house of all, had attached itself to his car.
"Get off," he warned it. But the commercial, well-adhered, began to crawl, buffeted by the wind, toward the door and the entrance crack. It would soon have squeezed in and would be haranguing him in the cranky, garbagey fashion of the Nitz advertisements.
He could, as it came through the crack, kill it. It was alive, terribly mortal: the ad agencies, like nature, squandered hordes of them.
The commercial, flysized, began to buzz out its message as soon as it managed to force entry. "Say! Haven't you sometimes said to yourself, I'll bet other people in restaurants can see me! And you're puzzled as to what to do about this serious, baffling problem of being conspicuous, especially-"
Chic crushed it with his foot.
You might enjoy (or you might not enjoy) some of these proposed technologies:
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/3/2021)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.
| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories -
("
Culture
")
Virtual Reality: Is Technology Alone Enough To Fully Enter A New World?
'Otherwise what good are the Perky Pat layouts to them?' - Philip K. Dick, 1969.
Amitabh Bachchan Wins Personality Protection
'He led me down the Hall of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides.' - Frank Herbert, 1964.
Bubloons May Be The Start Of Something Much Bigger
'Spurgle kicked at the letter G... It was a monstrous white thing, ten feet thick, half a city block long...' - Alan Nelson, 1953.
Sleeping Pods In Tokyo Railway Stations
'... she was asleep before the lid sealed fully back in place.' - Larry Niven, 2003.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
|
 |
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
ESTHER Tennis Robot V. Fact (1934) And Fiction (1952)
'THE red tennis robot scooted desperately across the court...'
Japan's LignoSat Space Wood Satellite And Dan Simmons' Treeship
'The Consul remembered his first glimpse of the kilometer-long treeship...'
Skyline Robotics Instantiates Heinlein's 'Window Willie' Skyscraper Robot
'Do you know what window washing used to cost by the hour?'
Drone Bombings In Moscow Foreseen 100 Years Ago
'Once the target is confirmed, it uses an IR laser to send a coded signal back to the parent, clearing it to attack.'
I Didn't Know You Can Already Buy Flesh Putty
'I filled your bullet hole with flesh putty and the lattice.'
'A Sign in Space' Gives Practice In Decoding ET Messages
'... it will be easy to form an alphabet which shall enable us to converse with the inhabitants of the moon.'
Melting Permafrost Endangers Infrastructure
'From the tower's huge octagonal base radiate wide silvery strips...'
EELS Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor For Enceladus
'It was about five feet long... a black bullet head and red camera eyes.'
Lazy Lawyer's Trust In ChatGPT Misplaced
'The Law Society has strict rules on the use of pseudo-intelligent software...'
Paradromics Implant FDA 'Breakthrough Device'
'I used my implant to tell MILLIE what we wanted...'
Mice, At Least, Can Sober Up Quickly
'Then draw some aldodote-vitamin pills from the medic.'
Is It Time For Lunar Farside Telescopes?
'Mount Ambarzumian Observatory, on Farside.'
Spaceflight Vertigo Solved By NASA Releasing The Kraken
"I threw up in my helmet."
TM-62 Loitering Ground Landmine
Runaway movie comes to life!
Helpful Robots In Science Fiction
'If you douse me again... I'm donating you to a city college.'
Lunar Pogo Stick - Retro Technovelgy From 1968
'Lucky touched the leap knob...'
More SF in the News Stories
More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories
|
 |