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"I think that self-limitation is the major limiting factor for most people in the world."
- Frank Herbert
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| Homotropic News Vending Machine | ||
| An autonomous news-selling robot, that was able to specifically seek out human beings. |
I especially like the fact that this robot is "homotropic," meaning that it turns towards and seeks out human beings. By analogy with heliotropic flowers, so-called because they track the motion of the sun.
| At the door of the restaurant an automated news vending machine appeared, with a late edition of the Chronicle. It's Rushmore Effect bleated out "Special coverage of the Luckman murder case." The restaurant, with the exception of their party, was empty; the news vending machine, being homotropic, headed toward them, still bleating. "The Chronicle's own circuit investigates, and discloses startling new details not found in the Examiner or the News-Call Bulletin. It waved the newspaper in their faces.
Getting out a coin, Sharp inserted it in the slot of the machine; it at once presented him with a copy of the paper and pulled back out of the restaurant, to hunt for more people. |
| Technovelgy from The Game Players of Titan,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Ace Books in 1963 Additional resources -
|
This news vending machine and its habits match up well with the homeostatic newspapers or homeopapes used to create the news in other stories.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Game Players of Titan
More Ideas
and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to The Game Players of Titan
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
Homotropic News Vending Machine-related
news articles:
- Himawari Homotropic Sunflower Robot
- AMP Robot Chases You With Tunes
- RoboStool Homotropic Furniture
- Amazon Patents Annoying Robot That Follows You
- Spam Autonomous Cars And Philip K. Dick
| 'Facetime Facelift' Beautifies Video Chats |
| Meeting Wendy Of Wendy's |
| Narrative Science And Phil Dick's Homeostatic Newspaper |
| BookTrack Adds Sound To Books |
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'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
