Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I do think there is a link in that in both cases, writing fiction or writing a computer program, at any given moment you're focusing on a very specific and particular thing—one word, one line of code, whatever."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Alibi Archive | ||
| A recording made of transmissions from a personal implant that perceived everything that happened to that individual. |
On this alternate Earth, everyone had a Companion implant that constantly transmitted the minutia of your life to an archive.
| "Since the day you were born, you've had a personal recording cube in the alibi-archive pavilion adjacent to this very Council building. And it has recorded everything you've done, every moment of your life, as transmitted by your Companion. "And ... every day of your life, you enjoy the peace and safety made possible by that very recording... You know that as you walk at night, the chances of you being the victim of robbery or murder ... are almost zero, because there's no way to get away with such a crime." |
| Technovelgy from Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax),
by Robert J. Sawyer. Published by Analog Science Fiction in 2003 Additional resources -
|
The images and other data flowing from an implant into the alibi-archive could also be "tapped" or viewed by someone else.
Thanks to Chris Johnston for pointing this one out.
"...the transmissions from Scholar Huld's Companion are being monitored directly by a living, breathing human being as they are received at the alibi-archive pavillion..."
Comment/Join this discussion ( 1 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax)
More Ideas
and Technology by Robert J. Sawyer
Tech news articles related to Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax)
Tech news articles related to works by Robert J. Sawyer
| Flock Stymied By 'Adversarial Fashion' |
| China's 'Magpie Drone' Ornithopter |
| FTC: Says Ring Employees Illegally Surveilled Customers |
| Perching Ambush Drones |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
