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"I took the Minnesota multiphasic profile test once, and I tested out as paranoid, cyclothymic, neurotic, and schizophrenic. But I also tested out as an incorrigible liar!"
- Philip K. Dick
 |
| Robot Tracking Device | ||
| Small UAV robot remotely operated by an artificially intelligent computer. |
Vulcan 3, an underground self-modifying supercomputer, uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to find out what's going on with the humans.
| On the chest of drawers something was perched. Something that gleamed, shiny metal, gleamed and clicked as it turned toward her. She saw into two glassy mechanical lenses, something with a tubelike body, the size of a child's bat, shot upward and swept toward her. |
| Technovelgy from Vulcan's Hammer,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Ace Books in 1960 Additional resources -
|
Take a look at what artists in 1960 thought a robot tracking device looked like in this first edition cover photo:
The same device attacked the leader of the resistance movement:
"...I found most of it." He triumphantly displayed a charred but still intact metal cylinder with an elaborate system of antennas, receptors and propulsion jets.
Here's what it feels like to live in this future society:
Madness, he thought. The ultimate horror for our paranoid culture; vicious unseen mechanical entities that flit at the edges of our vision, that can go anywhere, that are in our very midst. And there may be an unlimited number of them. One of them following each of us...
The existence of these devices is one demonstration of Vulcan 3's paranoia; ordinarily, it relied on countless human beings who provided it with information. Dick compares the provision of data to Vulcan 3 with slopping a hog - he refers to "data troughs."
Compare to the scuttle-bot from Hella (2020) by David Gerrold and the robot snake spy from Mariposa (2009) by Greg Bear.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Vulcan's Hammer
More Ideas
and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to Vulcan's Hammer
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
Robot Tracking Device-related
news articles:
- Draganflyer X6 Helicopter Has HD Camera
- Aggressive Autonomous Quadrotor UAV Makes Its Moves
- Perching Flying Robot
- Wasp Micro-UAV Used By Texas SWAT
- Rolling Robot's Helicopter Transformation
- sFly UAVs Swarm Together For SAR
- EASE Surveillance Robot Hovering Near You
- Google's Project Wing Will Find You
- Flying Robot Has An Arm
- Prodrone Dual Arm Drone PD6B-AW-ARM As Predicted In 1960
- DoD Requests AI Drone Swarm
- 'Alexa For Residential' A Landlord's Dream (Tenant's Nightmare?)
- In Your Orchard, Do You Want Buzzing Suction Drones, OR Dick's Claw Hand Drones?
| Amazon One Is Frank Herbert's Palm Lock |
| Who Needs Dogs? Trained Bees Detect Explosives |
| Government In-Home Surveillance - Yes! Say Third Of Under-30 Adults |
| New Train Station Offers Minority Report-Style Signs |
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
