Science Fiction in the News:
Science and Technology News

Bot Tweets Venmo Drug Transactions
An alarming item to find on your twitter feed. (re: John Brunner)

'Power Clothing' - The Seismic 'Super Suit'
'The real genius in the design is that you don't have to control the suit; you just wear it...' - Robert Heinlein, 1959. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Rolls Royce eVTOL Flying Car
'The cab came floating down out of the sky at the intersection.' - James Blish, 1955. (re: James Blish)

Ontario Starts Guaranteed Minimum Income
'Earned by just being born.'- Philip Jose Farmer, 1967. (re: Philip Jose Farmer)

Is There Life In Outer Space? Will We Recognize It?
'The antennae of the Life Detector atop the OP swept back and forth...' - Frank Herbert, 1958. (re: Frank Herbert)

Space Traumapod For Surgery In Spacecraft
' It was a ... coffin, form-fitted to Nessus himself...' - Larry Niven, 1972. (re: Larry Niven)

Tesla Augmented Reality Hypercard
'The hypercard is an avatar of sorts.' - Neal Stephenson, 1992. (re: Neal Stephenson)

A Space Ship On My Back
''Darn clever, these suits,' he murmured.' - Jack Williamson, 1933. (re: Jack Williamson)

Biomind AI Doctor Mops Floor With Human Doctors
'My aim was just not to lose by too much.' - Human Physician participant. (re: Larry Niven)

Fuli Bad Dog Robot Is 'Auspicious Raccoon Dog' Bot
Bad dog, Fuli. Bad dog. (re: Ray Bradbury)

Las Vegas Humans Ready To Strike Over Robots
'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.' - John Twelve Hawks, 2014. (re: John Twelve Hawks)

You'll Regrow That Limb, One Day
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.' - Frank Herbert, 1972. (re: Frank Herbert)

Elon Musk Seeks To Create 1941 Heinlein Speedster
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.' - Robert Heinlein, 1941. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Somnox Sleep Robot - Your Sleepytime Cuddlebot
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too. (re: Larry Niven)

Real-Life Macau or Ghost In The Shell
Life imitates art imitates life. (re: Masamune Shirow)

Has Climate Change Already Been Solved By Aliens?
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.' - Larry Niven, 1970. (re: Larry Niven)

First 3D Printed Human Corneas From Stem Cells
Just what we need! Lots of spare parts. (re: Larry Niven)

VirtualHome: Teaching Robots To Do Chores Around The House
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.' Robert Heinlein, 1956. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) Workshop
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century. (re: Jules Verne)

Nanorobots Roam Your Bloodstream, Cleaning It
Too bad they won't have lasers, though... (re: Isaac Asimov)

Galini 3D Printed Sleeping Pod Tiny Houses
'The houses are prefabricated units...' - Clifford Simak, 1952. (re: Clifford Simak)

MIT Boffins Create Psychopath AI On Purpose
There's a lesson in this for neural net AI engineers everywhere. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Skin Electronics 3D Printed
'June's body is a tracery of lambent lines, like some arcane capillary circuitry...' - Paul Di Filippo, 1985 (re: Paul Di Filippo)

Artificial Sensory Neurons For Prosthetics, Robots
Great for humans and robots! (re: Roger Zelazny)

China Uses Artificial Intelligence To Grade Student Papers
Looks like the City Fathers are starting to take over China's education system. (re: James Blish)

Electronic Tongues Will Rule The Kitchen
'Install taste buds in the end of one tentacle...' - Anthony Boucher, 1943 (re: Anthony Boucher)

Self-Healing Circuits From Carnegie Mellon
'It even had an inter-skin layer of gum that could seal the punctures...'- Raymond Z. Gallun, 1951. (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

Swarm Of Mindless Robots Works Together
'Very tiny pseudo insects that... can unite to form a superordinate system.' - Stanislaw Lem, 1954 (re: Stanislaw Lem)

SpotMini Robot Dog, Autonomous And On Sale In 2019
Great, an autonomous slamhound. (re: William Gibson)

RoboFly Is Laser-Powered, Adorable
Don't swat this fly! (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

MSG Sphere Las Vegas, ala Star Wars
'The smoky globe, hung in the vault, was shot with colored light...' - Samuel R. Delany, 1966. (re: Samuel R Delany)

Tetraplegics Dominate Avatar Races
Well, just speaking brain-to-computer... (re: Pournelle and Niven)

MIT Ampli Blocks Build Biomedical Devices
Damn it Spock, I'm a doctor not an engineer! (re: Gene Roddenberry)

UberAIR Asks For Skytaxi Landing Prototypes
I'd rather just call one to my front yard, please. (re: Various)

Boring Tunnel Almost Ready
Your underground future is almost here! (re: Various)

Handheld Human Skin Printer
It outputs a thin wad of uniflesh. (re: Frank Herbert)

Healthy Fast Food Courtesy Of Robot Chefs
'The electric cook was stirring empty nothing in a pan, with a zeal worthy a dozen eggs.' - Elizabeth Bellamy, 1899. (re: Elizabeth Bellamy)

Mass Production Of In Vitro Meat From One Sample
They're Assimilating Our Culture, That's What They're Doing (re: Larry Niven)

Amazing 'Hybrid' Solar-Powered Sea Slug Does Photosynthesis
Thank goodness for Star Trek. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Retinal Prosthesis Uses Organic Printing Inks
We can rebuild you - well, your eyes, maybe. (re: Frank Herbert)

Should You Submit Your DNA To A Database?
Consumer DNA services are often inaccurate. (re: Andrew Niccol)

Squid-Like Robots Soon To Be 3D Printable
'It was a chemotactic artificial jellyfish designed to slither...' Rucker and Sterling, 1994. (re: Rucker/Sterling)

Humans Evolve Deep Diving Abilities
Sounds like '60s sci-fi to me. (re: Irwin Allen)

Researchers Create Bowls, Coils, Ripples Of Living Tissue
'... biological robots were not living creatures.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1972. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

IBM's Grain Of Sand Computer
'Our ancestors... thought to make the very sand beneath their feet intelligent...' - Stanislaw Lem, 1965. (re: Stanislaw Lem)

Liquid Metal Shape-Changing 'Soft Robotics'
'A mimetic poly-alloy... 'What the hell does that mean?'' John Cameron, 1991. (re: Philip K. Dick)

The Hammock Caravan And Italo Calvino's Octavia
'Now I will tell you how Octavia, the spider-web city, is made.' (re: Italo Calvino)

Super-Resolution Microscopy Provides '4D' Views
View the magnified interior of living cells. (re: James Hogan)

Have I Seen The Tesla Roadster Story Before?
'Only it wasn't a vessel. It was an automobile...' - Theodore Sturgeon, 1941. (re: Theodore Sturgeon)

Watch 'Do You Trust This Computer' For Free Today
Thanks for making this available, Elon. (re: Various)

Self-Driving Car Ticketed
This just missed making my day. (re: Various)

Elon Musk Tweets Versions Of Clarke's Operation Cleanup
'Fortunately, the old orbital forts were superbly equipped for this task.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1978. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Burner Generates Temporary Phone Numbers
'Interesting phone system he's got, by the way...' - John Varley, 1984. (re: John Varley)

Walmart’s Autonomous Robot Bees
Are you allergic to autonomous robot bees? (re: Various)

EA Created AI That Taught Itself To Play Battlefield
Harmless fun for computer scientists. (re: Keith Laumer)

Is Teleportation A Death Sentence?
'A long trail of dead, he thought, left across the stars...' - Clifford Simak, 1963. (re: Clifford Simak)

New Brain Scanner Lets You Move Around
'In Bob Arctor's living room his thousand dollar custom-quality cephscope crafted by Altec...' - Philip K. Dick, 1977. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Can An Entire Brain Be Simulated In A Computer?
'The miles of relays and photocells had given way to the spongy globe of platinum iridium about the size of the human brain.' - Isaac Asimov, 1941. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Physicists Try To Turn Light Into Matter
If E=mc squared, then... m=E/c squared! (re: John W. Campbell)

Save Your Brain's Connectome, Upload Yourself Elsewhere
'You've got remote storage. How regular is the update?' - Richard Morgan, 2003. (re: Richard Morgan)

TMS Decreases Belief In God, Increases Belief In Immigrants
'... Setting up the same currents, the same basic ideas, in them all.' - Edmond Hamilton, 1938. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

Loomo Mini Transporter Robot Companion You Ride On
'Slowly the [robot] horse raised its head, wiggled its ears, blinked twice, gave a tentative whinny.' - Christopher Stasheff, 1969. (re: Christopher Stasheff)

Soft Robotics - Now With 3D Printed Sensors!
'A series of chemelectric afferent nerve-analogues, which permitted it to gauge to an ounce the amount of pressure necessary to snap a bone...' - Roger Zelazny, 1966. (re: Roger Zelazny)

AI Tool Lynx Insight And The Cybernetic Newsroom
'The structure,... was once a great homeostatic newspaper, the New York Times. It printed itself directly below us...' - Philip K. Dick, 1963. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Espresso Telescope Searches For Exoplanets
'These instruments were the wonderful ones our astronomers had perfected.' - Edmond Hamilton, 1936. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

Dune Fans! Metal-Organic Frameworks Make Science Fiction Real
'Dew collectors,' he muttered, enchanted by the simple beauty of such a scheme. - Frank Herbert, 1965. (re: Frank Herbert)

Manned Maneuvering Unit From 1984
'The glittering little rocket bolted to the black iron behind him.' - Jack Williamson, 1933. (re: Jack Williamson)

Astronaut Gets Younger In Space
'So what we're looking for now is not an antibiotic - an anti-life drug - but an anti-agathic, an anti-death drug...' - James Blish, 1957. (re: Neil R. Jones)

Blockchain Used To Verify Election Results
'Any adult could punch into the phone his or her code, followed by a yes or no.' - John Brunner, 1975. (re: John Brunner)

IJOP Integrated Joint Operations Platform China's Minority Report?
'All day long the idiots babbled, imprisoned in their special high-backed chairs...' (re: Philip K. Dick)

HushMe Bluetooth Device Reinvents The Hush-A-Phone
'Talking into a hush-a-phone which he had plugged into the telephone jack...' - Robert Heinlein, 1940. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Ultrathin Brain Needle Developed At MIT
Putting drugs into a selected cubic millimeter within the living brain. (re: Larry Niven)

Tesla Semi Truck Now At Work
Why wait? Tesla Semi now hard at work. (re: Poul Anderson)

Illustris: The Next Generation Of Universe Simulation
'This digital device was ... A machine able literally to contain the Universe Itself...' - Stanislaw Lem, 1965. (re: Stanislaw Lem)

Scaly Yet Soft Robotic Snake
Love those robotic sneks. (re: Emmett McDowell)

Cool Tinsley Lunar Unicycle Update
Great update of a timeless classic. (re: Various)

NASA's 'Armstrong' Soft Wearable Upper Extremity Garment
'Exact same articulation as your shoulder joint, and it holds your muscles out of the way...' - Samuel R. Delany, 1966. (re: Samuel R. Delany)

Kuri Robot Roams Your Home, Taking Pictures
'Small devices with cameras and sound equipment which could move freely...' (re: Niven and Pournelle)

Tiny Rubbery Robot To Take 'Fantastic Voyage'
I think that I will wait for other volunteers for this one. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Svalbard Seed Vault (aka Doomsday Vault) Gets Upgrades
'But they existed in the Life Bank, as did virtually every plant and animal that existed on Old Earth.' - John Varley, 1977. (re: John Varley)

Disney Vyloo Robots With Personality
'Let's build robots with Genuine People Personalities...' - Douglas Adams, 1979. (re: Douglas Adams)

'Princess Leia Project' Images That Float In The Air
Help me, Daniel Smalley; you're our only hope. (re: George Lucas)

Americans! Stay Indoors To Save Energy
'Those funny old days, when men went for change of air instead of changing the air in their rooms!' - EM Forster, 1909. (re: EM Forster)

Self-Healing Skin For Robots
If you can't self-heal, you're not much good to us. (re: James Cameron)

A 'Genuine Nanorobotic Production Factory'
'Microscopic machinery, smaller than ants, smaller than pins, working energetically, purposefully - constructing something...' - Philip K Dick, 1955. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Neuromorphic Computer Offers Non-von Neumann Architecture
Fires faster than brain at 1/10K energy. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Evorus Your Crowd-Powered Conversational Assistant
'...the DS [Daily Schedule] was suddenly transformed into a valued confidante.' (re: Frank Herbert)

Mealworms Food Of The Future
Get your grubs on. (re: David Brin)

Alibaba's AI May Read Better Than You
'Mike ... could accept other languages and was doing technical translating - and reading endlessly.' - Robert Heinlein, 1966. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Musk's Boring Flamethrower
'Skeletons in tatters. Burned by a flesh gun'- Alfred Bester, 1974. (re: John Brunner)

Humanity Star LEO Advertisement?
'Everyone has noticed those enormous advertisements...' Jules Verne, 1889. (re: Jules Verne)

Nissan ProPILOT Slippers Are Self-Parking, Autonomous
Beyond science and fiction, that's what they are. (re: Terry Prachett)

Atomristors - Atomic Memristors - Using Thin Nanomaterials
'I could almost feel those little tunnel junction neuristors working, forming their own interconnections as I operated it.' - Robert Heinlein, 1966. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Bigelow Prepares Inflatable Lunar Hotel
'Suddenly, hitherto unheard-of sums of money became available for investment in civilian orbital stations.' - Carl Sagan, 1985. (re: Car Sagan)

Drunk Driver Of Tesla Claims Autopilot Was In Charge
'Mr. Garden, you are in no condition to drive.' - Philip K. Dick, 1963. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Medical Exoskeleton From Cyberdyne Gets FDA Approval
It's been a long road for HAL-5; I started writing about it in 2005. (re: Fritz Leiber)

Fungi-Infused Concrete Repairs Itself
'I noticed that curious mottled knots were forming, indicating where the room had been strained and healed faultily.'- J.G. Ballard, 1962. (re: J.G. Ballard)

Shiftwear Display Shoes
'He unlaced her shoe and glanced at its readout.' Bruce Sterling, 1988. (re: Bruce Sterling)

NASA SEXTANT First With X-Ray Nav In Space
'You need at least four beacons for an accurate fix.' - Harry Harrison, 1956. (re: Harry Harrison)

GM Introduces Cruise AV With No Steering Wheel
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!' - Miles Breuer, 1930 (re: David H Keller)

Subsurface Martian Ice Slabs Piece Of Cake For Miners
'One shy little fellow with bloodshot eyes of old-time drillman stood up. 'I'm an ice miner,' he said.' - Robert Heinlein, 1966. (re: Robert Heinlein)

LG Rollable Version Of Niven's Poster TV
'A television that unrolled like a poster.' - Larry Niven, 1976. (re: Larry Niven)

Multi-Robot Farming On Highly Sloped Land
High Plains, indeed. (re: Larry Niven )

Aeolus Robot Brings Jetson's Rosie Closer
Domestic duties, robotically performed. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Sony's New, Cuter Aibo Robot Puppy
Engineered to be adorable. (re: Philip K Dick)

Earth-1 Transformer Gundam Car
Is it a Gundam? Or maybe a Transformer. (re: Various)

Self-Driving Domino's Pizza Car
Yes, but can it negotiate entry at your Burbclave? (re: Various)

I Want Massive Space Freighters!
Ah, the space freighters of old. (re: Edwin K. Stoat)

When Will The Feds Ban Human Drivers?
'The first laws came out forcing the old machines off the highways...' - Isaac Asimov, 1953. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Our World Formed In A Bubble?
'The Worldcraft bubble glittered, catching the light...' - Philip K. Dick, 1953. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Will You Live To See EM Pulse Scattering By Ships Nearing Light Speed?
'...half a million kilometers away, the Stardrive went on.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1953. (re: Arthur C Clarke)

Jabil Integrated Textile Heart Monitoring
'Della's first present was an imipolex sweatshirt called a heartshirt…' Rudy Rucker, 1988. (re: Rudy Rucker)

Made In Space To Manufacture Optical Fiber In Orbit
'Mass-produced only in the orbiting factories...' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1978. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Dune Fans! Power Your Devices With Sweaty Shirts
Yet another power source from humans. (re: Frank Herbert)

Orwell's Memory Hole Looms Larger Thanks To Nvidia
'All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.' - George Orwell, 1948. (re: George Orwell)

Pipefish Robot Checks Pipes Cheap
Just like capsule endoscopy, but for bigger pipes. That go underground. (re: Various)

Nifty New SDS Space Debris Sensor For ISS
'Their radars... could easily pinpoint the debris of the early Space Age.' Arthur C. Clarke, 1978. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

NanoRacks Space Station Module Concept Validated
Space junk into space architecture. (re: David Brin)

Nuclear Drones Could Fly For Years
'I sent my eyes on their rounds and tended my gallery of one hundred-thirty changing pictures...' - Roger Zelazny, 1966. (re: Roger Zelazny)

SciFiQ Science Fiction Writing Aid
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.' - George Orwell, 1948. (re: George Orwell)

Robot Only Faster, Not Better, At Recycling
'Whenever a robot finds something it can't identify straight off... it puts whatever it is in the hopper outside your window.' - Harry Harrison, 1956. (re: Harry Harrison)

Poland Starts With 1000 Warmate 'Suicide Drones'
'Royal Security had told the pods to electrocute you or blast you into chum.' - Neal Stephenson, 1995. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Dream Of Building Your Own Rocket?
Fiorello Bodoni, you inspire all of us. (re: Ray Bradbury)

Zero Mass 'Vaporators' Pull Drinking Water From The Air
Did you think of Star Wars? (re: George Lucas)

Elon Musk Fears A 'Fleet-Wide Hack' Of Autonomous Vehicles
'Khan grinned. 'It's alive! Bu-wahhahahah!'' (re: Daniel Suarez)

China Melts Tibetan Permafrost To Plant Forest
'Can you give us a microwave spotlight?' - Niven, Pournelle, Flynn, 1995. (re: Niven, Pournelle, Flynn)

iFlytek Doctor Robot First To Pass Medical Exams
No problem, we'll just use the autodoc. (re: Larry Niven)

Slaughterbot AI KIller Quadcopter Drones
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.' - Neal Stephenson, 1995. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Do We Really Want Backflipping Robots?
Also includes wonderful blooper reel. (re: Various)

RNA-Based Biocomputing Device
Living things can sense and analyze complex signals in living cells. (re: Greg Bear)

Seasteading Floating Cities
'It was a remarkable island, circular, about half a kilometer in diameter.' - Otfrid von Hanstein, 1930. (re: Otfrid von Hanstein)

Tesla Semi 'Electrotruck' Unveiled
Elon Musk unveils yet another technological marvel. (re: Poul Anderson)

Watch What People Are Seeing Via Brain Scanning
'had managed to see through the other man's eyes as the other man, all unaware, washed their Zis limousine sixteen hundred meters away...' - Cordwainer Smith, 1958. (re: Cordwainer Smith)

Integrated Circuits Printed Right Onto Fabric!
'...a shirt that displayed email on its sleeve. - Margaret Atwood, 2003. (re: Margaret Atwood)

Interstellar Asteroid Visits Our Solar System
'This asteroid had whirled in from the cold of the interplanetary space...' - Ray Cummings, 1930. (re: Ray Cummings)

PRIMA Bionic Vision Restoration
'The VISOR... was a medical device used in the Federation to aid patients who have suffered loss of eyesight...' (re: Gene Roddenberry)

Audi Traffic Jam Pilot Knows If You're Sleeping
'Even here, riding a garbage truck to eternity, the machine watched him...' - Harry Harrison, 1956. (re: Harry Harrison)

UM Hall Thruster Breaks Records
Someday, we'll see an ion drive used to get to Mars. (re: Jack Williamson)

Ionity Ultra-fast Charging Station Network
'Recharge the batteries... in almost every town and village...'- John Jacob Astor IV, 1894. (re: John Jacob Astor IV)

VAuth Voice Security Wearable From University of Michigan
'Siri, I gave you a voice command...' 'Yes, but do I know you?' (re: Gosho Aoyama)

Ubiquiti FrontRow Camera Records Your Life
Why be choosy? Just upload your whole life to the Internet, and be done with it. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Ancient Ocean On Ceres?
'We sailed gently forward, hull down to the asteroid's surface... A little sea was now beneath us.' (re: Ray Cummings)

SmileCloud Bubloons Are Custom Clouds
'Spurgle kicked at the letter G... It was a monstrous white thing, ten feet thick, half a city block long...' - Alan Nelson, 1953. (re: Alan Nelson)

Cassie 'Halfbot' Best Half (Lower) Of Humanoid Robot
We can always make it limp along if it gets threatening. (re: Various)

Autonomous Concrete Floor Finishing Robot
Keep those construction site robots coming. (re: Michael Crichton)

Musk Tweets A Boring Tunnel Pic
'We hit the sub-basement and went at once to the express tubes...' - Robert Heinlein, 1956. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Shelley.ai AI Terrifies Thanks To Reddit's Nosleep
'How can you compete with IBM?' - JG Ballard, 1971. (re: JG Ballard)

Lunatix Lunar Rover Will Accept YOUR Commands!
'The bulldozer moved through the lunar strip mine... ' - Niven and Pournelle, 1981. (re: Niven and Pournelle)

Tesla Electric Automatobus Prototype Spotted?
Those buses need to feed on something. (re: Isaac Asimov)

E-Fuso eCanter Electric eTruck
I prefer the 'electro' prefix, personally. (re: Poul Anderson)

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