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"One can see the free software movement as a precusor for a "free hardware" or "free wetware" movement--one that will provide free libraries of designs for biological or nanotechnological products that replicators can be programmed to churn out."
- Charles Stross
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| Clothing Size Scanner | ||
| A device that scanned a living person to determine clothing sizes. |
Depahli De is interested in a particular suit; is it available in her size?
| "If you'd like to step into our scanner, please?"
The department's scanner raced red lights up and down her form, penetrating her sari to take her measurements. |
| Technovelgy from Sagramanda,
by Alan Dean Foster. Published by Pyr in 2006 Additional resources -
|
The first example of the use of technology to determine size without the need to take clothes off became popular in the 1940's and 1950's. Most shoe stores had an x-ray machine that would show the outlines of the shoe, and the bones of the person's feet, thus ensuring a proper fit. It has been estimated that over 10,000 of these machines were in operation. At the time, the hazards of indiscriminate x-ray use were not known; these machines were outlawed in most states by 1970.
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'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
