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"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today -- but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Filing Crystal | ||
| Part kiosk, part storage system. |
| Besides them, a twelve-foot filing crystal glowed like pin quartz. "Ron," said Rydra. "No, Ron and Calli, too."
The Navigators stepped up, puzzled. "You know some first navigator who suicided recently that you think we might—" Rydra shook her head. She passed her hand before the filing crystal. In the concaved screen at the base, words flashed. She stilled her fingers. "Navigator-Two. . . ." She turned her hand. "Navigator-One. . . ." She paused and ran her hand in a different direction.". . . male, male, male, female... Rydra watched, her hand drifting through centimeters over the crystal's face. The names on the screen flashed back and forth. Rydra's hand came down on the crystal face, and the name glowed on the screen. “Mollya Twa, Navigator-One." Her coordinate numbers followed. |
| Technovelgy from Babel-17,
by Samuel R. Delany. Published by Ace Books in 1966 Additional resources -
|
Regarding the use of gestures to manipulate an electronic device, compare to the hand wave control from Philip K. Dick's 1955 novel Solar Lottery and the gesture controlled devices in Douglas Adam's 1979 novel A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
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More Ideas
and Technology from Babel-17
More Ideas
and Technology by Samuel R. Delany
Tech news articles related to Babel-17
Tech news articles related to works by Samuel R. Delany
Filing Crystal-related
news articles:
- eyeSight Gesture Control Of Android Phones
- Gesture-Controlled iPads?
- FingerIO Active Sonar Smartphone Finger Tracking
| Lonestar Offers Lunar Storage For Ultimate In Security |
| 100X Improvement In DNA Information Storage |
| Twist Bioscience High Density Digital Data On DNA |
| Store One Bit On One Atom |
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'...each of them is a neural mapping of the mind of a Tibetan monk who actually lived.'
'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain, through the mediation of the electronic brain in the leg.'
'... every veephone on the continent would display, over and over, two propositions.'
'Completely silent, accurate up to about twenty meters. No recoil...'
'He wore spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.'
