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
"...the elements of cyberpunk have dissolved into the whole SF genre, so it’s hard to find anyone writing who doesn’t owe serious debts to Gibson and his crew."
- Richard Morgan
 |
| Separated At Birth Database | ||
| Missing persons database uses similarity to famous people. |
What is the best way to ask people if they've seen a missing person?
| "Tommy Lee Jones," the black man said... "You look like him.."
"Who?" "Was an actor, man... You Rydell. Ran you on Separated at Birth." Separated at Birth was a police program you used in missing persons cases. You scanned a photo of the person you wanted, got back the names of half a dozen celebrities who looked vaguely like th subject, then went around asking people if they'd seen anybody lately who reminded them of A,B,C... The weird thing was, it worked better than just showing them a picture of the subject. The instructor at the Academy in Knoxville had told Rydell's class that that was because it tapped into the part of the brain that kept track of celebrities. |
| Technovelgy from Virtual Light,
by William Gibson. Published by Bantam in 1993 Additional resources -
|
As far as I know, there is no existing example of this idea in use by police agencies. However, there is a site called MyHeritage Face Recognition that will allow you to upload a face and find out which celebrity you might resemble.
I tried it with a picture of Tommy Lee Jones - and the site correctly recognized the actor. I then picked at random a picture of Jesse James, the famous 19th century American outlaw. MyHeritage thinks that he closely resembles Alan Turing, the 20th century mathematician.
Thanks to John for pointing this one out.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Virtual Light
More Ideas
and Technology by William Gibson
Tech news articles related to Virtual Light
Tech news articles related to works by William Gibson
Separated At Birth Database-related
news articles:
- Lookalike 'Wanted' Leaflet Features Harry Potter Actor
| Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests |
| Neuroplatform Human Brain Organoid Bioprocessor Uses Less Electricity |
| AI Worms That Spread |
| Great. Now AIs Have Access To Hacking Tools |
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
'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.'
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...'
'These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern...'
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.'
'We have decided that it shall be but one ship... it must contain everything needed to take us through the generations.'
'You’re the robopsychologist of the plant, so you’re to study the robot itself...'
