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"Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it."
- Robert Heinlein
 |
| 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
| Flock Stymied By 'Adversarial Fashion' |
| China's 'Magpie Drone' Ornithopter |
| FTC: Says Ring Employees Illegally Surveilled Customers |
| Perching Ambush Drones |
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'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
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'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
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'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
