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"Tokyo homeless people reiterate the whole nature of living in Tokyo in cardboard boxes, they're only slightly smaller than Tokyo apartments, and they have almost as many consumer goods. It's a nightmare of boxes within boxes."
- William Gibson
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| Smart Lanes | ||
| Roadways that monitored, directed and controlled traffic. |
The problem of how to control the movement of large numbers of private vehicles has been a recurring question for science fiction writers (Americans, anyway). One of Robert Heinlein's early short stories, The Roads Must Roll, address similar technical issues. In his case, the roads themselves provide motive power.
| John had taken the wheel at Barstow when I-40 fed into I-15…He could brake and steer and control the throttle. The road sensors now measured his speed and how much his Jeep veered from the midpoint of his lane. The state would fine him for high speed or a wide dispersion from the lane midpoint. They all drove on smart lanes that billed and fined the driver by the second. |
| Technovelgy from Nanotime,
by Bart Kosko. Published by Avon Books in 1987 Additional resources -
|
Another writer who works with this issue is Philip K. Dick - see his story Minority Report. Traffic control systems using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) devices in license tags has also been implemented.
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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.
