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"There's no point in making a mistake unless you understand the mistake so that you don’t make it again."
- Alfred Bester
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| Wearables (Wearable Computers) | ||
| Computers and peripherals that use textiles for electronic circuitry. |
Very slick implementation of an idea that has been around for a while (see the references below for more).
| Wearable computers, what a concept. IBM PC meets Epiphany-brand high-fashion. In fact, Robert might have mistaken his new wardrobe for ordinary clothes. True, the shirts and pants were not a style he favored. There were embroidered patterns both inside and out. But the embroidery was more noticeable to the touch than the eye; Juan Orozco had to show him special views to reveal the net of microprocessors and lasers. |
| Technovelgy from Rainbows End,
by Vernor Vinge. Published by Tor in 2006 Additional resources -
|
The general idea of wearable computers has been around (in computer science) since the early 1960's. The notion of being able to make use of fabric-based components is relatively new; science fiction authors pioneered these ideas. See the sleeve communicator from Murray Leinster's 1945 story First Contact and (even better) the sleeve watch from Larry Niven and Steve Barnes' 1981 novel Dream Park.
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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
Wearables (Wearable Computers)-related
news articles:
- T-Shirt Computing And Vinge's Wearables
- Google's Project Tango VR Tablet Pictures Your 3D World
| Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer |
| Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet |
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
| Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249 |
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'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
