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Dictionary of Entertainment Terms in Science Fiction
(Technovelgy items at top: skip
down to News)
Name |
Author (Publication Date) |
Airpolo Polo played in mid-air with special aircraft and helium-filled balls. |
Leo Zagat (1943) |
Analogue - devolution through chemistry A combination of a drug and a particular mental state allow a person to devolve to an animal level of their choice. |
Alfred Bester (1956) |
Antigravity Globe Arena A spherical arena for wrestling. |
Samuel R. Delany (1966) |
Dashboard TV A television placed in the dashboard of your car or similar vehicle. |
Philip K. Dick (1955) |
Dimensino - alien entertainment center An alien entertainment center that provides the ultimate in immersive experience. |
Clifford Simak (1961) |
Dream Park - theme park ancestor A vacation theme park in which the visitors participated fully in the different environments. |
Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes) (1981) |
Droud - wire your pleasure center A transformer to step down house current for the wire providing current directly to the pleasure center of the brain. |
Larry Niven (1969) |
Empathy Box - TV for your emotional brain A device which allows a group of people to empathize with a single person (like television lets many people view the same broadcast). |
Philip K. Dick (1964) |
Feelies (Feely) Device adds the tactile element to entertainment. |
Aldous Huxley (1932) |
Gravity Whip - zero g on a budget A roller coaster designe to provide riders with a 'zero G' experience. |
Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes) (1981) |
Jumble-Box A device that jumbles sensory input. |
Roger Zelazny (1980) |
Life Chamber A machine-mediated, fully immersive experiential environment. |
G. Peyton Wertenbaker (1929) |
Light-Sculpture A creative work that was both sculpture and light. |
Isaac Asimov (1973) |
Nipple-Assist A multi-purpose electronic device worn upon the nipple. |
Philip K. Dick (1964) |
Nullboxing Bubble The 'ring' used for a sport played out in free fall; essentially kickboxing in space. |
Steven Barnes (1983) |
Peeper - unlock your inner dreams A device that unlocked the dreams and fantasies inherent in the user's brain. |
Clifford Simak (1957) |
Rifle Range (Virtual Shooting Range) - virtual skeet shooting designed by aliens Virtual skeet shooting gallery with clay pigeon traps created by aliens. |
Clifford Simak (1963) |
Saga - very early virtual reality reference You become a part of the great adventures of history. |
Arthur C. Clarke (1956) |
Sceneshifter An automated display device that produced random pictorial presentations. |
Philip K. Dick (1954) |
Semuta - eerie music A combination of a specific drug and music, which penetrated to the deepest levels of consciousness. |
Frank Herbert (1965) |
SimStim - playback your internal experience Stimulation of the brain and nervous system of one person using a recording (or live broadcast) of another person's experience. |
William Gibson (1984) |
Sky-Bike A human-powered floating bicycle built for use in lunar sports. |
Arthur C. Clarke (w/Pohl) (2008) |
Storer-Gulls Wings - recreation for lunar colonists Recreational aid for lunar colonists; lightweight wings for cave flying. |
Robert Heinlein (1957) |
Tasp - right where you live A device that induces a current in the pleasure center of the brain, at a distance. |
Larry Niven (1970) |
Twist-Box - hack your own reality A device that scrambles your sensory input, providing you with a different kind of experience. |
Rudy Rucker (1988) |
Virtual Keyboard A keyboard that appears at the right moment in game play. |
Frederik Pohl (1966) |
Virtual Reality Video Game - very early description A description of a computer game simulation played in real time as entertainment. |
Frederik Pohl (1966) |
Visi-Sonor - emotional brain multi-media An entertainment device which appeared to create both sound and light by acting directly on brain cells. It also stimulated emotions directly. |
Isaac Asimov (1952) |
XV Wedge - let me entertain you A piece of entertainment that consists of edited real experience. |
John Barnes (1994) |
Related Science Fiction in the News
'Iceberg House' Of Travis Kelce Reflects Science Fiction Of Past Century 'The basement was huge... carved deep into the rock that folded up to underlie the ridge...' - Clifford Simak, 1963. (re: Clifford Simak, 11/5/2024 ) |
Lucid Dreams On Demand From Prophetic and Card79 'the peeper did not operate by virtue of its machinery alone, but by the reaction of the brain and the body of its user...' - Clifford Simak, 1957. (re: Clifford Simak, 10/29/2023 ) |
Flyboard Water Jet Shoes Lift Off 'I shall never forget that first lesson in aerial walking.' - Francis Flagg, 1930. (re: Francis Flagg, 8/23/2021 ) |
Cosplay Style Wings Could Work On Moon 'They're lovely! - titanalloy struts as light and strong as bird-bones...' - Robert Heinlein, 1957. (re: Robert Heinlein, 1/3/2019 ) |
Music Not Impossible (MNI) Vibrotactile Wearable Experience Don't you want to experience the 'feely' effects? (re: Aldous Huxley, 11/25/2018 ) |
Augmented and-or Virtual Reality Shoes From Google 'The auto-treadmill's bumps and gullies matched whatever terrain the goggles showed me...' - David Brin, 1994. (re: David Brin, 11/11/2018 ) |
MSG Sphere Las Vegas, ala Star Wars 'The smoky globe, hung in the vault, was shot with colored light...' - Samuel R. Delany, 1966. (re: Samuel R Delany, 5/11/2018 ) |
Actors Reject, Makers Embrace, Posthumous Movie Resurrection 'Suddenly firmed and we saw ''Adam Selene.'' - Robert Heinlein, 1966. (re: Robert Heinlein, 12/21/2016 ) |
Will Future Games Require Hallucinogens ala Phil Dick? 'The final packaged product Can-D, made life bearable for over one million unwilling expatriates from Terra...' - Philip K. Dick, 1965. (re: Philip K. Dick , 10/23/2016 ) |
Emoti-Chair Lets You Hear Through Your Skin 'Take hold of these knobs on the arms of your chair...'- Aldous Huxley, 1932. (re: Aldous Huxley, 2/7/2015 ) |
It's Boonta Eve! You Can Podrace With Drones Pretty amazing event from France. (re: George Lucas, 10/10/2014 ) |
Microsoft RoomAlive - Your Basement Is The Game 'Enoch walked over to a panel ... and thumbed a tumbler, then stepped quickly out into the center of the room... '- Clifford Simak, 1963. (re: Clifford Simak, 10/4/2014 ) |
Microsoft Patents Immersive Display 'Almost every home had its dimensino room...' - Clifford Simak, 1961. (re: Clifford Simak, 9/13/2012 ) |
Zero Gravity Roller Coaster Coming Do you long to escape the bonds of Earth's gravity? This extreme roller coaster could do the trick. (re: Niven and Barnes, 2/10/2012 ) |
Basement Holodeck With Playstation Move And EyeToy 'Almost every home had its dimensino room, rigged with the apparatus which picked up the weird, alien impulses...' (re: Ray Bradbury, 12/6/2011 ) |
XWave Apps For iPhone See Brainwaves Brainwave sensors for entertainment goes back at least a generation in sf. (re: Philip K. Dick, 1/15/2011 ) |
Biotic Video Games Use Living Cells 'The Ganymedean life form did not experience pain and had not yet objected to being made over into a portion of an electronic system.' (re: Philip K. Dick, 1/13/2011 ) |
Face Dancer Puts Fizz In Your Phizz This artist makes sure that his music appreciation is right in sync with the music. With video. (re: Frank Herbert, 12/4/2008 ) |
Shuttle Launch Experience Open To All Since you probably won't be going into space, you can try NASA's space shuttle ride. (re: Various, 5/28/2007 ) |
Soviet Military Prison Dream Vacation I really thought I'd seen everything you could do for vacation. Obviously, I lead a sheltered life. (re: Various, 12/4/2006 ) |
Second Life - Your Virtual World Is Ready Now CNet moves to the virtual world of Second Life. (re: Neal Stephenson, 9/30/2006 ) |
Sonic Grenade Homebrew Here's just the thing to wake up your roommate - and you can make one yourself! (re: Robert Heinlein, 4/3/2006 ) |
XPod Activity And Emotion Aware Mobile Music Player A sensitive iPod? These researchers have a player that knows what you want before you do. (re: Arthur C. Clarke, 1/15/2006 ) |
Collapsing The Wave: An Interview with J. Frederick Arment I really liked J. Frederick Arment's Backbeat - A Novel of Physics. This is a novel that demonstrates real writing power; the characters are touching and memorable. He makes the ideas behind quantum mechanics come alive in a fascinating story about r (re: J. Frederick Arment, 11/30/2004 ) |
Planetary Parks Proposed For Mars Conservation A set of seven 'planetary parks' have been proposed for the conservation of the martian environment by two European scientists. (re: Alfred Bester, 11/29/2004 ) |
Imperial Probe Droid And NFL Robotic Skycam - Separated At Birth? Maybe I've had too much turkey and science fiction, but I was watching the Detroit Lions play yesterday, and I suddenly thought that the Skycam system, created by CF InFlight, bore a remarkable resemblance to the Star Wars Imperial Probe Droid. (re: George Lucas, 11/26/2004 ) |
Holo-Dek - A Unique Real-World Virtual Venue The Holo-Dek center in Hampton, New Hampshire, may not quite have the same features as the holodeck from Star Trek - but when you see your favorite computer games unfold at human scale, you might just buy into their business. (re: Gene Roddenberry, 11/25/2004 ) |
RoboCoaster G2 - Extreme Robot Roller Coaster RoboCoaster G2, the next generation of rollercoaster ride, was demonstrated in Orlando on Friday. It's an industrial grade robot and it moves on a configurable track. (re: Various, 11/22/2004 ) |
Baja Beach Club Implants VeriChip In Customers The Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, Spain is the first business to use the VeriChip System to grant customers access to VIP areas and provide an easy payment option. (re: Neal Stephenson, 4/22/2004 ) |
MusicPad Pro: Digital Sheet Music File Player You can store your entire music library on this device, using digital sheet music brought in from music composition programs and even scanned sheet music files. (re: Isaac Asimov, 4/20/2004 ) |
Virtual Reality and Your Spider Sense Recent work at the University of Washington has shown that combining tactile input with virtual reality can improve the usefulness of aversion therapy. (re: William Gibson, 11/10/2003 ) |
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Engineering
Entertainment
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Lifestyle
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Manufacturing
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