Science Fiction in the News:
Science and Technology News

Physicists Try To Turn Light Into Matter
If E=mc squared, then... m=E/c squared! (re: John W. Campbell)

Save Your Brain's Connectome, Upload Yourself Elsewhere
'You've got remote storage. How regular is the update?' - Richard Morgan, 2003. (re: Richard Morgan)

TMS Decreases Belief In God, Increases Belief In Immigrants
'... Setting up the same currents, the same basic ideas, in them all.' - Edmond Hamilton, 1938. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

Loomo Mini Transporter Robot Companion You Ride On
'Slowly the [robot] horse raised its head, wiggled its ears, blinked twice, gave a tentative whinny.' - Christopher Stasheff, 1969. (re: Christopher Stasheff)

Soft Robotics - Now With 3D Printed Sensors!
'A series of chemelectric afferent nerve-analogues, which permitted it to gauge to an ounce the amount of pressure necessary to snap a bone...' - Roger Zelazny, 1966. (re: Roger Zelazny)

AI Tool Lynx Insight And The Cybernetic Newsroom
'The structure,... was once a great homeostatic newspaper, the New York Times. It printed itself directly below us...' - Philip K. Dick, 1963. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Espresso Telescope Searches For Exoplanets
'These instruments were the wonderful ones our astronomers had perfected.' - Edmond Hamilton, 1936. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

Dune Fans! Metal-Organic Frameworks Make Science Fiction Real
'Dew collectors,' he muttered, enchanted by the simple beauty of such a scheme. - Frank Herbert, 1965. (re: Frank Herbert)

Manned Maneuvering Unit From 1984
'The glittering little rocket bolted to the black iron behind him.' - Jack Williamson, 1933. (re: Neil R. Jones)

Astronaut Gets Younger In Space
'So what we're looking for now is not an antibiotic - an anti-life drug - but an anti-agathic, an anti-death drug...' - James Blish, 1957. (re: Neil R. Jones)

Blockchain Used To Verify Election Results
'Any adult could punch into the phone his or her code, followed by a yes or no.' - John Brunner, 1975. (re: John Brunner)

IJOP Integrated Joint Operations Platform China's Minority Report?
'All day long the idiots babbled, imprisoned in their special high-backed chairs...' (re: Philip K. Dick)

HushMe Bluetooth Device Reinvents The Hush-A-Phone
'Talking into a hush-a-phone which he had plugged into the telephone jack...' - Robert Heinlein, 1940. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Ultrathin Brain Needle Developed At MIT
Putting drugs into a selected cubic millimeter within the living brain. (re: Larry Niven)

Tesla Semi Truck Now At Work
Why wait? Tesla Semi now hard at work. (re: Poul Anderson)

Illustris: The Next Generation Of Universe Simulation
'This digital device was ... A machine able literally to contain the Universe Itself...' - Stanislaw Lem, 1965. (re: Stanislaw Lem)

Scaly Yet Soft Robotic Snake
Love those robotic sneks. (re: Emmett McDowell)

Cool Tinsley Lunar Unicycle Update
Great update of a timeless classic. (re: Various)

NASA's 'Armstrong' Soft Wearable Upper Extremity Garment
'Exact same articulation as your shoulder joint, and it holds your muscles out of the way...' - Samuel R. Delany, 1966. (re: Samuel R. Delany)

Kuri Robot Roams Your Home, Taking Pictures
'Small devices with cameras and sound equipment which could move freely...' (re: Niven and Pournelle)

Tiny Rubbery Robot To Take 'Fantastic Voyage'
I think that I will wait for other volunteers for this one. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Svalbard Seed Vault (aka Doomsday Vault) Gets Upgrades
'But they existed in the Life Bank, as did virtually every plant and animal that existed on Old Earth.' - John Varley, 1977. (re: John Varley)

Disney Vyloo Robots With Personality
'Let's build robots with Genuine People Personalities...' - Douglas Adams, 1979. (re: Douglas Adams)

'Princess Leia Project' Images That Float In The Air
Help me, Daniel Smalley; you're our only hope. (re: George Lucas)

Americans! Stay Indoors To Save Energy
'Those funny old days, when men went for change of air instead of changing the air in their rooms!' - EM Forster, 1909. (re: EM Forster)

Self-Healing Skin For Robots
If you can't self-heal, you're not much good to us. (re: James Cameron)

A 'Genuine Nanorobotic Production Factory'
'Microscopic machinery, smaller than ants, smaller than pins, working energetically, purposefully - constructing something...' - Philip K Dick, 1955. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Neuromorphic Computer Offers Non-von Neumann Architecture
Fires faster than brain at 1/10K energy. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Evorus Your Crowd-Powered Conversational Assistant
'...the DS [Daily Schedule] was suddenly transformed into a valued confidante.' (re: Frank Herbert)

Mealworms Food Of The Future
Get your grubs on. (re: David Brin)

Alibaba's AI May Read Better Than You
'Mike ... could accept other languages and was doing technical translating - and reading endlessly.' - Robert Heinlein, 1966. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Musk's Boring Flamethrower
'Skeletons in tatters. Burned by a flesh gun'- Alfred Bester, 1974. (re: John Brunner)

Humanity Star LEO Advertisement?
'Everyone has noticed those enormous advertisements...' Jules Verne, 1889. (re: Jules Verne)

Nissan ProPILOT Slippers Are Self-Parking, Autonomous
Beyond science and fiction, that's what they are. (re: Terry Prachett)

Atomristors - Atomic Memristors - Using Thin Nanomaterials
'I could almost feel those little tunnel junction neuristors working, forming their own interconnections as I operated it.' - Robert Heinlein, 1966. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Bigelow Prepares Inflatable Lunar Hotel
'Suddenly, hitherto unheard-of sums of money became available for investment in civilian orbital stations.' - Carl Sagan, 1985. (re: Car Sagan)

Drunk Driver Of Tesla Claims Autopilot Was In Charge
'Mr. Garden, you are in no condition to drive.' - Philip K. Dick, 1963. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Medical Exoskeleton From Cyberdyne Gets FDA Approval
It's been a long road for HAL-5; I started writing about it in 2005. (re: Fritz Leiber)

Fungi-Infused Concrete Repairs Itself
'I noticed that curious mottled knots were forming, indicating where the room had been strained and healed faultily.'- J.G. Ballard, 1962. (re: J.G. Ballard)

Shiftwear Display Shoes
'He unlaced her shoe and glanced at its readout.' Bruce Sterling, 1988. (re: Bruce Sterling)

NASA SEXTANT First With X-Ray Nav In Space
'You need at least four beacons for an accurate fix.' - Harry Harrison, 1956. (re: Harry Harrison)

GM Introduces Cruise AV With No Steering Wheel
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!' - Miles Breuer, 1930 (re: David H Keller)

Subsurface Martian Ice Slabs Piece Of Cake For Miners
'One shy little fellow with bloodshot eyes of old-time drillman stood up. 'I'm an ice miner,' he said.' - Robert Heinlein, 1966. (re: Robert Heinlein)

LG Rollable Version Of Niven's Poster TV
'A television that unrolled like a poster.' - Larry Niven, 1976. (re: Larry Niven)

Multi-Robot Farming On Highly Sloped Land
High Plains, indeed. (re: Larry Niven )

Aeolus Robot Brings Jetson's Rosie Closer
Domestic duties, robotically performed. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Sony's New, Cuter Aibo Robot Puppy
Engineered to be adorable. (re: Philip K Dick)

Earth-1 Transformer Gundam Car
Is it a Gundam? Or maybe a Transformer. (re: Various)

Self-Driving Domino's Pizza Car
Yes, but can it negotiate entry at your Burbclave? (re: Various)

I Want Massive Space Freighters!
Ah, the space freighters of old. (re: Edwin K. Stoat)

When Will The Feds Ban Human Drivers?
'The first laws came out forcing the old machines off the highways...' - Isaac Asimov, 1953. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Our World Formed In A Bubble?
'The Worldcraft bubble glittered, catching the light...' - Philip K. Dick, 1953. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Will You Live To See EM Pulse Scattering By Ships Nearing Light Speed?
'...half a million kilometers away, the Stardrive went on.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1953. (re: Arthur C Clarke)

Jabil Integrated Textile Heart Monitoring
'Della's first present was an imipolex sweatshirt called a heartshirt…' Rudy Rucker, 1988. (re: Rudy Rucker)

Made In Space To Manufacture Optical Fiber In Orbit
'Mass-produced only in the orbiting factories...' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1978. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Dune Fans! Power Your Devices With Sweaty Shirts
Yet another power source from humans. (re: Frank Herbert)

Orwell's Memory Hole Looms Larger Thanks To Nvidia
'All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.' - George Orwell, 1948. (re: George Orwell)

Pipefish Robot Checks Pipes Cheap
Just like capsule endoscopy, but for bigger pipes. That go underground. (re: Various)

Nifty New SDS Space Debris Sensor For ISS
'Their radars... could easily pinpoint the debris of the early Space Age.' Arthur C. Clarke, 1978. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

NanoRacks Space Station Module Concept Validated
Space junk into space architecture. (re: David Brin)

Nuclear Drones Could Fly For Years
'I sent my eyes on their rounds and tended my gallery of one hundred-thirty changing pictures...' - Roger Zelazny, 1966. (re: Roger Zelazny)

SciFiQ Science Fiction Writing Aid
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.' - George Orwell, 1948. (re: George Orwell)

Robot Only Faster, Not Better, At Recycling
'Whenever a robot finds something it can't identify straight off... it puts whatever it is in the hopper outside your window.' - Harry Harrison, 1956. (re: Harry Harrison)

Poland Starts With 1000 Warmate 'Suicide Drones'
'Royal Security had told the pods to electrocute you or blast you into chum.' - Neal Stephenson, 1995. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Dream Of Building Your Own Rocket?
Fiorello Bodoni, you inspire all of us. (re: Ray Bradbury)

Zero Mass 'Vaporators' Pull Drinking Water From The Air
Did you think of Star Wars? (re: George Lucas)

Elon Musk Fears A 'Fleet-Wide Hack' Of Autonomous Vehicles
'Khan grinned. 'It's alive! Bu-wahhahahah!'' (re: Daniel Suarez)

China Melts Tibetan Permafrost To Plant Forest
'Can you give us a microwave spotlight?' - Niven, Pournelle, Flynn, 1995. (re: Niven, Pournelle, Flynn)

iFlytek Doctor Robot First To Pass Medical Exams
No problem, we'll just use the autodoc. (re: Larry Niven)

Slaughterbot AI KIller Quadcopter Drones
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.' - Neal Stephenson, 1995. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Do We Really Want Backflipping Robots?
Also includes wonderful blooper reel. (re: Various)

RNA-Based Biocomputing Device
Living things can sense and analyze complex signals in living cells. (re: Greg Bear)

Seasteading Floating Cities
'It was a remarkable island, circular, about half a kilometer in diameter.' - Otfrid von Hanstein, 1930. (re: Otfrid von Hanstein)

Tesla Semi 'Electrotruck' Unveiled
Elon Musk unveils yet another technological marvel. (re: Poul Anderson)

Watch What People Are Seeing Via Brain Scanning
'had managed to see through the other man's eyes as the other man, all unaware, washed their Zis limousine sixteen hundred meters away...' - Cordwainer Smith, 1958. (re: Cordwainer Smith)

Integrated Circuits Printed Right Onto Fabric!
'...a shirt that displayed email on its sleeve. - Margaret Atwood, 2003. (re: Margaret Atwood)

Interstellar Asteroid Visits Our Solar System
'This asteroid had whirled in from the cold of the interplanetary space...' - Ray Cummings, 1930. (re: Ray Cummings)

PRIMA Bionic Vision Restoration
'The VISOR... was a medical device used in the Federation to aid patients who have suffered loss of eyesight...' (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Audi Traffic Jam Pilot Knows If You're Sleeping
'Even here, riding a garbage truck to eternity, the machine watched him...' - Harry Harrison, 1956. (re: Harry Harrison)

UM Hall Thruster Breaks Records
Someday, we'll see an ion drive used to get to Mars. (re: Jack Williamson)

Ionity Ultra-fast Charging Station Network
'Recharge the batteries... in almost every town and village...'- John Jacob Astor IV, 1894. (re: John Jacob Astor IV)

VAuth Voice Security Wearable From University of Michigan
'Siri, I gave you a voice command...' 'Yes, but do I know you?' (re: Gosho Aoyama)

Ubiquiti FrontRow Camera Records Your Life
Why be choosy? Just upload your whole life to the Internet, and be done with it. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Ancient Ocean On Ceres?
'We sailed gently forward, hull down to the asteroid's surface... A little sea was now beneath us.' (re: Ray Cummings)

SmileCloud Bubloons Are Custom Clouds
'Spurgle kicked at the letter G... It was a monstrous white thing, ten feet thick, half a city block long...' - Alan Nelson, 1953. (re: Alan Nelson)

Cassie 'Halfbot' Best Half (Lower) Of Humanoid Robot
We can always make it limp along if it gets threatening. (re: Various)

Autonomous Concrete Floor Finishing Robot
Keep those construction site robots coming. (re: Michael Crichton)

Musk Tweets A Boring Tunnel Pic
'We hit the sub-basement and went at once to the express tubes...' - Robert Heinlein, 1956. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Shelley.ai AI Terrifies Thanks To Reddit's Nosleep
'How can you compete with IBM?' - JG Ballard, 1971. (re: JG Ballard)

Lunatix Lunar Rover Will Accept YOUR Commands!
'The bulldozer moved through the lunar strip mine... ' - Niven and Pournelle, 1981. (re: Niven and Pournelle)

Tesla Electric Automatobus Prototype Spotted?
Those buses need to feed on something. (re: Isaac Asimov)

E-Fuso eCanter Electric eTruck
I prefer the 'electro' prefix, personally. (re: Poul Anderson)

SpaceX BFR Lands $41M From USAF
'Presently, near Kansas City, the sky turned from black to purple again...' - Robert Heinlein, 1951. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Mmm, Tasty Duck From A Petri Dish
'Laboratories in every city had produced synthetic food and meats, grown in large test tubes...' - David H. Keller, 1933. (re: David H. Keller)

Drones Guided By The Mind Alone
'His treads left no tracks upon the floor...' - Clifford Simak, 1961. (re: Clifford Simak)

effie Automated Ironing Appliance
'Household Automata received an urgent task to develop production units of бытовые тканевые разглаживk (re: Mikhail Mikheev)

BabyX AI Real Enough For You
'...what's to keep me from showing face, Man? I'm showing a voice this instant... I can show a face the same way.' - Robert Heinlein, 1966. (re: Robert Heinlein)

We Could Downgrade Puerto Rico - And Thereby Save It
'It was cheaper to pay the refugees to go without up-to-the-minute equipment.' - John Brunner, 1976. (re: John Brunner)

Pegasus, Nvidia Supercomputer For Autonomous Driving
'...a 2045 convertible with a Hennis-Carleton positronic motor and an Armat chassis.' - Isaac Asimov, 1953. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Loihi Chip Mimics Human Brain's Neurons And Synapses
'You can hook a Thorsen tube into a control circuit... and the tube will "remember" what was done and can direct the operation...' - Robert Heinlein, 1956. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Self-Assembling Bacteria Build A Pressure Sensor
Nature is a master of fabricating structured materials consisting of living and non-living components. (re: Unknown)

3D Printed Artificial Muscles Are Stronger Than Yours
Bots don't need to work out. (re: Martin Caidin)

Fog Computing (AKA Edge Computing) Ad Hoc Networks
'The tiny devices chirped their impulse codes at one another...' - Vernor Vinge, 1999. (re: Vernor Vinge)

Dubai Scorpion Police Hoverbike Ready To Pull Young Kirk Over
'Is there a problem, officer?' (re: Gene Roddenberry)

HEXA Robotic Help For Plants
Then some unknown race had chanced upon the dreamers and decided to 'help them out.' - Vernor Vinge, 1992. (re: Vernor Vinge)

Korean Tesla Model S Video 'Excelsior' Is Indeed Our Motto
'Improving man by bringing him close to Nature, while they combine the sensations of coasting with the interest of seeing the country well...' (re: John Jacob Astor IV)

DIY Robot Shoots You In The Face
'...there were automatic guns that fired ligamine darts.' - Michael Crichton, 1969. (re: Michael Crichton)

A Bayesian Approach to Safe Imitation Learning For AIs and Robots
Um, how about that pension for the humans who serve as the models for robot behavior? (re: Anthony Boucher)

Qoobo Headless Robotic Therapy Cat Was Anne McCaffrey's Idea
'...used as surrogates in intense dependency cases.' - Anne McCaffrey, 1990. (re: Anne McCaffrey)

Autonomous Cars Talk To Each Other At MCity
'My cars talk to one another.' - Isaac Asimov, 1953. (re: Isaac Asimov)

PUFFER Robots - From Philip K DIck's Second Variety?
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.' - Philip K. Dick, 1953. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Russian Space Garden
'We saw the gardens, flooded with artificial sunlight...' - Harley S. Aldinger, 1932. (re: Harley S. Aldinger)

Targeted Neuroplasticity Training For 'Downloading Skills'
'I know kung-fu.' (re: Various)

U of M's MCity To Feature Asimov's Automatobuses
Should you turn autonomous buses off? (re: Isaac Asimov)

Crazyflie Drone Swarm Technology
'...Programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern.' - Neal Stephenson, 1995. (re: Bruce Sterling)

Our GodBot, Who Art In Cyberspace
Vaal hungers! We must serve him. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

easyJet Short-Haul Electric Jets
Have a little faith, will you? They're working on it. (re: John W. Campbell)

Meet Assist-e Honda's Self-Balancing Motorcycle
'He had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems...'- Bruce Sterling, 1998. (re: Bruce Sterling)

Kalashnikov's One-Seater Hovercraft
Not for windy days. (re: Various)

L16 Revolutionary Optics Spells End For Ordinary DSLRs?
Time for Esper Photo Analysis, Blade Runner fans. (re: Ridley Scott)

Biggest HiSeas 'Mars Mission' Problem? No Internet
I think sf writers have this covered! (re: Harry Gore Bishop)

Clever Electric Truck Generates More Power Than It Uses
Better than a fictional electrotruck! (re: Poul Anderson)

Eden-ISS, Greenhouse In Antarctica
'With this kind of light we could get the gardens going again." - Barbara Humbly, 1983. (re: Barbara Hambly)

Make Space Tools On The Spot (Like Moties)
'A moment ago it was squeezing silver toothpaste in a ribbon...' - Niven and Pournelle, 1974. (re: Niven and Pournelle)

Will Robots Be Moral If We Raise Them Like Our Children?
'The birth of Machine, my robot child...' - Henry Slesar, 1958. (re: Henry Slesar)

Foldable Galaxy Phones, I Swear They're Coming (Maybe)
Apparently, it is very hard to do. We've been patient, though. (re: Larry Niven)

Bacteria Behave Differently In Space
'The Republic struggled to control its Sours...' - Bruce Sterling, 1985. (re: Bruce Sterling)

Brain Connected To Internet - ‘Brainternet'
Fascinating! or thoughts to that effect. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Artificial Spider Silk
You can also use it to make a roof - on an asteroid. (re: Robert Heinlein)

MIT Tunes Ions For Frictionless Surface - Superlubricity!
'My telelubricator here neutralizes the interatomic bonds the surface of any solid...' - L. Sprague de Camp, 1940. (re: L. Sprague de Camp)

Seiko Astron Always Knows Your Time Zone
'Harrington glanced at his wrist watch - a bulky affair - and whistled.' - Robert Heinlein, 1940. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Robot Buddhist Priest Chants, Drums
'He crossed the waiting room to the Padre booth...' - Philip K. Dick, 1969. (re: James Blish)

Koniku Kore, Mouse Brain-Based Chip, Detects Explosives
'As a matter of fact, this mouse is going to keep on thinking forever.' - Cordwainer Smith, 1962. (re: Cordwainer Smith)

CNH Industrial Autonomous Tractor Concept Video
'...the tiny red glints of self-guided tractors.' - Larry Niven, 1966. (re: Larry Niven)

Temi Robotic Telepresence Roommate
'Small [telepresence] devices with cameras and sound equipment which could move freely...' - Niven and Pournelle, 1981. (re: Niven and Pournelle)

The Neuroon Open Sleep Tracker For Lucid Dreaming
'Leads trail away from insertion points on her face and wrist... to a lucid dreamer on the bedside shelf.' - Peter Watts, 1999. (re: Peter Watts)

Siri Now Smoother, Perkier (Thanks, Deep Learning!)
'Good morning, Dr. Chandra. This is Hal.' - Arthur C. Clarke (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

China's Drone Fleet Flies In Formation
'Programmed to hang... in a hexagonal grid pattern.' - Neal Stephenson, 1995. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Neuralink, The Latest Elon Musk Passion
'I used my implant to tell MILLIE [a mainframe computer] what we wanted...' - Pournelle and Niven, 1981. (re: Pournelle and Niven)

RFly Drones Rule The Warehouse
'The wasp homed unerringly on the face of the honeycomb...' - James P. Hogan, 1979. (re: James P. Hogan)

Will The FDA Approve This Antiaging Drug?
'So what we're looking for now is... an anti-agathic, an anti-death drug.' - James Blish, 1951. (re: James Blish)

Rule Of Humans By Software Not Transparent
'The Council itself could be overridden by a superior power...' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1956. (re: Miles Breuer)

SpaceX Spacesuit Design Transmitted By Elon Musk
Welcome, SpaceX, to the club of space suit imaginers and makers. (re: Schachner and Zagat)

Will A Steel Umbrella Stop Russia?
'Everyone was aware that the damned platform was wandering around in its own orbit...' - EB White, 1950. (re: EB White)

EVE Artificial Womb For Lambs (For Now)
'In the crimson darkness, stewing warm on their cushion of peritoneum and gorged with blood-surrogate and hormones...' - Aldous Huxley, 1932. (re: Aldous Huxley)

TIKAD Armed Drone Ready To Fight
'Each a television eye and a sonic stunner...' - Larry Niven, 1972. (re: 309)

Bees Royal Jelly Helps Wounds Heal Faster
'An alien drug... used by an insect race.' - Clifford Simak, 1961. (re: Clifford Simak)

NASA Wants To Make Oxygen On Mars
'They plop down on the Red and if the dust is deep enough ... they burrow in...' - Greg Bear, 2014. (re: Greg Bear)

Hackers Insert Malware Into DNA
'They tied the memory to the bloodline and that was their record!' - (re: Barbara Hambly)

X2-VelociRoACH Cooperates To Launch Tiny Drones
Little robots cooperating can do big tasks. Eventually. (re: Isaac Asimov)

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