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"Cyberpunk worked when the Internet was in its hand-wound crystal radio phase, when you had to be a sort of hobbyist to do e-mail, and it all had a very steep learning curve. Those days are over."
- William Gibson
 |
| Recording Eye | ||
| A surveillance device that can survive being dropped from space; transmits images in a wide view. |
At this point in the novel, manipulative Charles Boardman is trying to persuade the novel's protagonist, Dick Muller, to take on a risky first-contact assignment. He shows him a video of the aliens themselves.
| Muller saw a cloud-wrapped planet... it could have been Venus... The recording eye pierced the cloud layer and revealed an unfamiliar, not very Earthlike planet. The soil looked moist and spongy, and rubbery trees that looked like giant toadstools thrust upward from it...
...three alien figures came strolling through the somber grove. They were elongated, almost spidery, with clusters of eight or ten jointed limbs depending from their narrow shoulders... One of them paused, bent peered closely at the ground. It scooped up the eye that had been witnessing its activities. The image grew chaotic; Muller guessed that the eye was being passed from hand to hand... Boardman said, "That was taken less than a month ago. We parked a drone ship fifty thousand kilometers up and dropped roughly a thousand eyes on Beta Hydri IV. At least half went straight to the bottom of the ocean... This was the only one that actually showed us a clear view of the aliens." |
| Technovelgy from The Man in the Maze,
by Robert Silverberg. Published by Avon Books in 1969 Additional resources -
|
Although he obviously gives no details on how such a device would function, the strategy is obviously workable, providing an alternative to human exploration that could actually work. For a look at a strikingly similar device, see the Omnidirectional EyeBall Surveillance Sensor. You also might be interested in the throwbot, a similar idea in a more 'terrestrial' format.
Compare to the ultraminiature spy circuit from The Unknown by Christoper Anvil.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Man in the Maze
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert Silverberg
Tech news articles related to The Man in the Maze
Tech news articles related to works by Robert Silverberg
Recording Eye-related
news articles:
- Throwbot - Pocket-Sized Recon Robot
- Micro Spacecraft To Explore Planets
- RFID Sensor Tag Shower For Disasters
- Stereo Omnidirectional System Intelligent Wheelchair
- PongSats - Tiny 'Satellites' At Space's Edge
- Rapid Deployment Integrated Surveillance System (RDISS)
- I-Ball Grenade Cam Just Lob And View
- CamBall Smallest Personal Camcorder
- Firefly Cameras Shot From Grenade Launcher
- Throw This Panoramic Ball Camera!
- Sensorbot Robotic Bubble Swarm For Ocean Exploration
- Flock Of Minisats Will Image The Earth
- Cicada UAV Dropped In Swarms
- The Eye Is Watching! Samsung Gear 360 Camera
| FTC: Says Ring Employees Illegally Surveilled Customers |
| Perching Ambush Drones |
| India Ponders Always-On Smartphone Location Tracking |
| LingYuan Vehicle Roof Drones Now Available, ala Blade Runner 2049 |
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'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
'It hurtled on down with inconceivable speed until it was visible as thousands of tiny robot planes...'
