Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I think crypto will slowly percolate its way up and people will adopt it gradually as user friendly, cheap products, become available."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Navicloud Custom Debinder | ||
| A machine that pulls books apart and scans the contents. |
This is one of my favorites from this excellent book. Here's the problem (and it may sound familiar): how can you scan the entire contents of a library?
In this excerpt, Robert walks into a university library, expecting to see the usual stacks.
| Tiny flecks of white floated and swirled in the column of light. Snowflakes? But one landed on his hand: a fleck of paper.
And now the ripping buzz of the saw was still louder, and there was also the sound of a giant vacuum cleaner... Brrrap! A tree shredder! Ahead of him, everything was empty bookcases, skeletons. Robert went to the end of the aisle and walked toward the noise. The air was a fog of floating paper dust. In the fourth aisle, the space between the bookcases was filled with a pulsing fabric tube. The monster worm was brightly lit from within. At the other end, almost twenty feet away, was the worm's maw - the source of the noise... The raging maw was a "Navicloud custom debinder." The fabric tunnel that stretched out behind it was a "camera tunnel..." The shredded fragments of books and magazines flew down the tunnel like leaves in a tornado, twisting and tumbling. The inside of the fabric was stiched with thousands of tiny cameras. The shreds were being photographed again and again, from every angle and orientation, till finally the torn leaves dropped into a bin just in front of Robert. |
| From Rainbows End,
by Vernor Vinge. Published by Tor in 2006 Additional resources -
|
Once the entire book was photographed, sophisticated optical character recognition programs went to work, picking out the characters and words on each page. Finally, the machine's AI reconstructed each book and reconstituted every chapter.
Another book "saved" for the 'net.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Rainbows End
More Ideas
and Technology by Vernor Vinge
Tech news articles related to Rainbows End
Tech news articles related to works by Vernor Vinge
Navicloud Custom Debinder-related
news articles:
- Anti-Shredder Computer Versus Stasi Secret Police
- Book-Scanning ScanRobot Neater Than Navicloud Custom Debinder
- Scanner Could Let You 'Rip' Books
| Science Fiction Helps Young Readers Build Resiliency |
| Unwanted Cruise Ships Huddle Together Out At Sea |
| News Mood Filter Web Extension |
| Maybe We Could Hibernate Until The Covid-19 Pandemic's End |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
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.
|
'The result was indeed marvelous... I did not stagger and I did not reel.'
'...thought had been given to its programming.'
'What lay down there? Energy, tubes and pipes, wiring, transformers, self-contained machinery...'
'Our beams feed these worlds energy drawn from... the Sun'
'Reading science fiction and fantasy can help readers make sense of the world.'
'Instantly there appeared standing upon the disk, the image of a man...'
'Your order said for him to be able to be able to work out twists on the gags in the file...'
'So we took pictures of Guzub making a Three Planets, and I could construct this one to do it exactly right down to the thousandth of a second.'
'On the screen they passed in an endless, boundaryless flood of green specks...'
