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" I think that computers today allow us one last opportunity to provide something like a level playingfield in America."
- William Gibson
 |
| Private Flyer | ||
| A privately-owned air vehicle that used no control surfaces for maneuvering. |
| The ordinary private flyer or aircar had no wings at all, or indeed any visible control surfaces. Even the clumsy rotor blades of the old helicopters had been banished. Yet man had not discovered anti-gravity; only the Overlords possessed that ultimate secret. His aircars were propelled by forces which the Wright brothers would have understood. Jet reaction, used both directly and in the more subtle form of boundary layer control, drove his flyers forward and held them in the air. |
| Technovelgy from Childhood's End,
by Arthur C. Clarke. Published by Not Known in 1953 Additional resources -
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and Technology from Childhood's End
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and Technology by Arthur C. Clarke
Tech news articles related to Childhood's End
Tech news articles related to works by Arthur C. Clarke
Private Flyer-related
news articles:
- DEMON UAV Has No Moving Flaps
| Chinese Aircar Light And Airy, Not For Blade Runners |
| The Morphing Wheel And The Smartwheel |
| Transporting Antimatter |
| I Wish This Plaudit Pin Was More Like A Wristpad |
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'Sapiro’s computer just kept dialing at random, hanging up on humans, until it got a fellow computer of the same type as itself.'
'I request that you feed the correlation between those dots and the levers of the panel into my memory banks.'
'... all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'If you surf over a bump, the spokes contract to roll over it.'
'He wrote on it, using the pointed fingernail of his right forefinger...'
