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"We were essentially being shell-shocked by rapid change. That was one of the things you needed science-fiction writers for back in the Sixties, because we could cope with the future."
- Peter Watts
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| GPS Sunglasses | ||
| Sunglasses that contain both global positioning system components and cell phone services. |
Okay, so your sunglasses ring, you open them up and put them on. You see, projected on the lens of your sunglasses, whatever the other person is seeing (and presumably vice-versa). Not only that, the other person knows exactly where you are thanks to the GPS device built in to the sunglasses.
| …She slipped him a pair of Brazilian GPS sunglasses, with inbuilt phone and AM-FM radio. |
| Technovelgy from All Tomorrow's Parties,
by William Gibson. Published by Putnam in 1999 Additional resources -
|
Do you need these? Maybe not. But the people in William Gibson's endlessly inventive novels, this is the sort of urban nomadic stuff you need. And, if you're a true urban nomad, knowing where you are with GPS is perfect.
You're an engineer and you want to know it works? By all means, read this dense PDF - GPS Signal Availability in an Urban Area Receiver Performance Analysis.
In a hurry and you'd prefer to cut to the chase? Okay, it turns out that in urban environments subject to lots of signal shading, GPS signal availability can vary by 60%. You want details: try this:
"The results demonstrate the effectiveness of narrow correlator spacing technology in reducing the position errors caused by multipath from buildings in urban canyons."
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| AcceleGlove Open-Source Data Glove |
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'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'The clothes and jewelery drew their tiny power requirements from her movements.'
'At the end of each appendage's eight fingers there are tinier appendages...'
'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.
