Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"There's a poetry in the materials we use to construct our world of artifacts; it speaks of our long history as a technological species."
- William Gibson
 |
| Alien Tarantula | ||
| Interesting illustration of an animal with gecko-like manipulative capabilities. |
This alien creature is an interesting implementation of the idea of a "bush robot," a concept developed by Hans Moravec and Robert Forward.
| Considered objectively, it's quite beautiful. Like a golden-furred tarantula, with tiny splayed hands at the ends of seven of its eight legs. Tiny eight-fingered hands, each a miniature of itself, as becomes evident when it skitters up the glass and walks upside down across the underside of the clamped-down glass slab on top. Matt gropes for a hand lens, peers through it as the animal repeats the manoeuvre. The brief flickering glimpse leaves no doubt. At the end of each appendage's eight fingers there are tinier appendages, eight of them, and these fingers' fingerlets are what open out to grasp the microscopic frictions of the pane. "Holy shit," says Matt. "A natural bush robot." |
| From Engine City,
by Ken MacLeod. Published by Tor Books in 2003 Additional resources -
|
It turns out that Robert Heinlein had a similar idea, but not quite as "fractal", in his 1941 novel Methuselah's Children.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 1 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Engine City
More Ideas
and Technology by Ken MacLeod
Tech news articles related to Engine City
Tech news articles related to works by Ken MacLeod
| Worms Eat Plastic Now |
| Mini-Brains In A Dish |
| NASA's Prototype Lunar Greenhouse For Mars And Moon |
| Researchers Say 'Biohybrid Robot' - Clarke Said 'Biot' |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'About a third of the people in Manhattan have replaced their Freedom Card with a radio-frequency chip...'
'The... machine, being homotropic, headed toward them, still bleating...'
'Most of the crew have the tiny imp ride on their shoulder...'
'And just as a daydreamer forgets his actual surroundings, and sees other realities...'
'Ender doodled on his desk, drawing contour maps of mountainous islands and then telling his desk to display them in three dimensions...'
'The bulldozer moved through the lunar strip mine... '
