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"People ask me how I do research for my science fiction. The answer is, I never do any research. I just enjoy reading the stuff, and some of it sticks in my mind and fits into the stories."
- Frederik Pohl

Digital Ink License Plate  
  License tags that can change both state and number in the blink of an eye.  

Slick implementation of this idea with near-future technology. How can you alter your license plate without leaving your car?

Gragg motioned with one black-gloved hand... Gragg's digital ink license plates flicked from California to Oregon vanity tags that read GECCO...
Technovelgy from Daemon, by Daniel Suarez.
Published by Dutton in 2006
Additional resources -

When I read about this, I immediately thought to the same idea implemented with futuristic 1941-style technology in Robert Heinlein's novel Methuselah's Children; see the entry for alterable license number.

I seem to recall that 007 had something similar, but with a rotating "drum" of plates, in the 1960's.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Daemon
  More Ideas and Technology by Daniel Suarez
  Tech news articles related to Daemon
  Tech news articles related to works by Daniel Suarez

Digital Ink License Plate-related news articles:
  - Electronic License Plates For California By Smart Plate Mobile
  - Rplate Digital License Plates Now Legal In Michigan

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Science Fiction in the News

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'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'

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'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'

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