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"We each live in a somewhat unique world of our own psychological content."
- Philip K. Dick

Robot Taste Buds  
  A sensor for robots that would allow it to taste foods like a human being.  

"Half your time in cooking is wasted reaching around for what you need next. We can build in a lot of that stuff. For instance, one [mechanical] tentacle can be a registering thermometer. tapering to a fine point - stick it in a roast. One can end in a broad spoon for stirring - heat resistant, of course. One might terminate in a sort of hand, of which each of the digits was a different-sized measuring spoon. And best of all - why the nuisance of bringing food to the mouth to taste? Install taste buds in the end of one tentacle.
Technovelgy from Robinc, by Anthony Boucher.
Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1943
Additional resources -

Compare the ability to taste with the ability to smell. See the mechanical hound from Ray Bradbury's 1953 masterpiece Fahrenheit 451 and the sniffer robot from Michael Crichton's 1985 movie Runaway.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Robinc
  More Ideas and Technology by Anthony Boucher
  Tech news articles related to Robinc
  Tech news articles related to works by Anthony Boucher

Robot Taste Buds-related news articles:
  - Magnetic 'Tongue' Can Taste Tomatoes
  - E-Delicious Machine A Food-Tasting Robot
  - Electronic Tongue Knows Beer Better Than You
  - Electronic Tongues Will Rule The Kitchen
  - China Develops Taste Testing Robots

Articles related to Robotics
Ultra-Realistic Robotic Arowana Robo-Fish
GITAI R1 Lunar Rover Like NASA Robonaut Centaur
Meshworm Soft Robot, With Peristaltic Crawling, Is Getting Better
Mushroom 'Robot' Is Just A Start

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Science Fiction in the News

Ultra-Realistic Robotic Arowana Robo-Fish
'Deveet unhooked his catch and laid it on the bank beside him. It was a metal fish.'

GITAI R1 Lunar Rover Like NASA Robonaut Centaur
'...waldoes in the screen followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.'

Meshworm Soft Robot, With Peristaltic Crawling, Is Getting Better
'Seen close it was not completely flexible, but made instead of pivoted and smoothly finished segments.'

Mushroom 'Robot' Is Just A Start
'Some unknown race ... decided to help them out.'

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'...the cars are wedge-shaped at both ends.'

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Amazing tactile display.

Biohybrid Robot Combines Living Muscle With Artificial Materials
'...great rectangular slabs of muscle, slung into a rectangular frame.'

Biohybrid Robots Made Of Living And Synthetic Materials
'If the biological robots were not living creatures, they were certainly very good imitations.'

Drug Induces Hibernation-Like State In Humans
'... drugged and chilled and stowed in sleep tanks.'

Poul Anderson's 'Brain Wave'
"Everybody and his dog, it seemed, wanted to live out in the country; transportation and communication were no longer isolating factors."

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