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"Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Smart Pizza Box | ||
| A container with microprocessor-based data processing capabilities built-in to the box. |
Every aspect of the CosaNostra Pizza business has been optimized. Gone are the cheap cardboard boxes - how can you tell anything about the history of your order? If you've been guaranteed a pizza in thirty minutes, a guarantee that states that the company CEO (Uncle Enzo) will personally fly to your crummy little house to apologize, you need a box you can trust, a box with a smart microprocessor running a computer read-out and a time-stamp.
| The pizza box is a plastic carapace now, corrugated for stiffness, a little LED readout glowing on the side, telling the Deliverator how many trade imbalance-producing minutes have ticked away since the fateful phone call. There are chips and stuff in there. The pizzas rest, a short stack of them, in slots behind the Deliverator's head. Each pizza glides into a slot like a circuit board into a computer, clicks into place as the smart box interfaces with the onboard system of the Deliverator's car. The address of the caller has already been inferred from his phone number and poured into the smart box's builtin RAM. From there it is communicated to the car, which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display, a glowing colored map traced out against the windshield so that the Deliverator does not even have to glance down. |
| From Snow Crash,
by Neal Stephenson. Published by Bantam in 1992 Additional resources -
|
That's right; when you join the organization, you become part of the family. " A really scary, twisted, abusive family."
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Snow Crash
More Ideas
and Technology by Neal Stephenson
Tech news articles related to Snow Crash
Tech news articles related to works by Neal Stephenson
Smart Pizza Box-related
news articles:
- Pizza Computer Is One Smart Box
- Green Box 'Futuristic' Pizza Box
| Is There A Subterranean Ocean? |
| The Robotic Shopping Cart Of The Future |
| Arctic Resource Jackpot An Old Wish |
| Marie Curie's Papers Still Radioactive |
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Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'... the lens displays would be useless without a wearable computer to do the graphics.'
'the registration number which the traffic control automatically photographed as she left the controlway...'
'It could maintain a steady six miles per hour...'
'Then they press one of these here thirteen buttons...'
'...without burning a single hydrocarbon molecule to injure the diseased atmosphere any further.'
'Bird-like robots now descended from the ceiling of the theatre...'
'The efficient robot waiter of the Sky Club had cleared away the remnants of an epicurean meal.'
'...in the tank the new body and the new mind and memory and life has taken almost instant form.'
