Science Fiction in the News:
Science and Technology News

Tricking Cells Into Making Silicon Chips
'Fabricated by genetically engineered metal affinity bacteria...' - Marvel, 1984. (re: Unknown)

AI Lip Reading Better Than Human, Like HAL 9000
Nothing to worry about, until computers control most vital systems. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

PLEN2 DIY Robot Cleaner Steals Your Heart
'I developed it to clean floors...' - Robert Heinlein, 1956. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Disney Hopping Robot, From Disney Research
'...vast, unerring, twenty-meter leaps.' - Bruce Sterling, 1994. (re: Bruce Sterling)

DURUS Robot Walks Like You Do, Maybe To Work
'The heavy-duty robots marched back and forth...' - Daniel Keyes, 1952. (re: Daniel Keyes)

Will Astronauts Get iPads In Space?
'He would plug his foolscap-sized Newspad into the ship's information circuit'- Arthur C. Clarke, 1968. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Uber's Robotics Plans Could Use Advice From SF Authors
'He was expecting disconsolately to be carted by the machine off to the nearest police station...' - Charles Stross, 2007. (re: Charles Stross)

Feeling A Poke On Your Robotic Hand
'Take care, sir.' (re: George Lucas)

Arctic Cities Crumble As Permafrost Melts
'The tapes stretch several kilometers in each direction.' - Robert Silverberg, 1970. (re: Robert Silverberg)

Double Charging Textile Obviates Clunky Dune Stillsuit Boots
'... the action of the heel-powered pumps that drove his still suit.' - Frank Herbert, 1969. (re: Frank Herbert)

Autonomous Oz Weeding Robot
"Got yourself a runaway pest controller.' - Michael Crichton, 1985. (re: Michael Crichton)

Deep Brain Stimulation Soon Without Surgery
'I sat down at my mood organ and I experimented.' - Philip K. Dick, 1968. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Rosemont Hotel Dubai Has Lobby Rainforest
'The braided waterfalls and hanging gardens that spilled down the arcology's levels..' - Paolo Bacigalupi, 2015. (re: Paolo Bacigalupi)

Sip From Your Ford When Catchpocket Shows Dewsparkle
'... living on reclaimed moisture from his own breath.' - Frank Herbert, 1965. (re: Frank Herbert)

Drowning? Lifeguard Drones Overhead!
'The death-reversal equipment is on its way...'- Frederk Pohl, 1965. (re: Frederik Pohl)

Elections In Science Fiction
'WE ARE READY TO PROCEED WITH THE TABULATION.' - James Blish, 1957. (re: James Blish.)

When Did Chess Computers Seem Unbeatable?
'A human simply can't beat a robotic expert.' Clifford Simak, 1951. (re: Clifford Simak)

Hurdl PIXL Wearable Helps Fans Connect With Stars
Like Macross Plus! (re: Various)

Will Future Games Require Hallucinogens ala Phil Dick?
'The final packaged product Can-D, made life bearable for over one million unwilling expatriates from Terra...' - Philip K. Dick, 1965. (re: Philip K. Dick )

DARPA Drone Distinguishes Soldiers And Civilians
I'm not sure I want to talk to ED-209... (re: Various)

Robo-Dolphin Demonstrates Porpoising
'With one fluid motion, it surged forward, plunged, and was gone.' - Michael Swanwick, 2002. (re: Michael Swanwick)

Vahana, The Airbus Flying Taxi
'The cab came floating down out of the sky at the intersection.' (re: James Blish)

Dubai Considers Robocop
'This was a nice-looking hunk of machinery. - Harry Harrison, 1958. (re: Harry Harrison)

GyroGlove Idea For Parkinson's Was Suggested In 1926
'The gyroscope was revolving at the rate of three thousand revolutions a minute, and the slight humming was hardly noticeable...' - Ellis Parker Butler, 1926 (re: Ellis Parker Butler)

Otto Self-Driving Truck Kit Delivers Budweiser Beer
'Trucks gulped packages and scurried like beetles...' - Poul Anderson, 1956. (re: Poul Anderson)

Airnest Drone Flight Logging Tool
'He reached to unsnap the cartograph from his belt.'- Jack Williamson, 1931. (re: Jack Williamson)

Untethered Drone Gets Wireless Power
'We'll use my 'broomstick'.' - Robert Heinlein, 1942. (re: Robert Heinlein)

ESA Plans Akon Projectile To Europa ala Jules Verne
'... might [it] not be possible to project a shot up to the moon?' Jules Verne, 1867. (re: Jules Verne)

Transparent OLED TV By Panasonic
It's the look of things to come. (re: HG Wells)

Shape-Memory Metal Transforms Millions Of Times
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.' - Samuel R. Delany (re: Samuel R. Delany)

Advertising Drones Hover Over Traffic In Mexico
'Blurbflies are allowd to travel the streets, buzzing their adverts alive and direct...' - Jeff Noon, 2000. (re: Jeff Noon)

How Can Amazon Patent A Voice-Controlled Drone?
''Tight mid-shot...' he told it.' Karen Traviss, 2004. (re: Karen Traviss)

'North Sense' Wearable Piercing From Cyborg Nest
'The fingers opened from the many-scaled stellarimeter grafted onto his palm.' - Samuel R. Delany, 1966. (re: Samuel R. Delany)

proCover Smart Sock Prosthetic Limb Enhancement
'Series of chemelectric afferent nerve-analogues, which permitted it to gauge to an ounce...' - Roger Zelazny, 1965. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Robots And AIs Will Replace Humans At 7 Percent Of U.S. Jobs
'And Mike took on endless new jobs.' - Robert Heinlein, 1966. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Human Doctors Still Better Than Computers
'Nowadays surgery was normally done by autodocs...' - Larry Niven, 1966. (re: Larry Niven)

FEDOR Humanoid Robot To Join Russians In Space
Am enjoying view of Russian robot. (re: Various)

BMW Self-Balancing Motorcycle - Never Put Feet On Road
'He had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems...'- Bruce Sterling, 1998. (re: Bruce Sterling)

MicroTug Is A Micro Robot Beast
'And it had been dragging something...' - Maurice A. Hugi (Eric Frank Russel), 1941. (re: Maurice A. Hugi)

Linear Elastic Actuator in Parallel (LEAP) - It's A Hopping Robot
'...Probably the most grotesque forms of transportation ever invented.'- Isaac Asimov, 1954. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Smart Glove Controls 3D Printed Robotic Arm (Waldo!)
'Waldo flexed and extended his fingers gently; the... waldoes... followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.'- Robert Heinlein, 1942. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Wearables For Animals Totally A Thing
'Twin deformities on either side of his skull had been engineered to house sensor units.' - William Gibson, 1981. (re: William Gibson)

Tomatoes From Sun And Seawater
'Hydroponics. Gotta almost do it, if I'm going way out to Mars without much supplies.' - Raymond Z. Gallun, 1961. (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

Hadrian X Construction Robot From Fastbrick Robotics
Hope Hadrian is never a runaway! (re: Michael Crichton)

Confirm 100 Exoplanets At Once! (With Video)
'My automatic astronomical instruments searching for a habitable planet.' - Edmond Hamilton, 1936. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

Blue Origin Tests 'Escape Pod' Capability
'I'm going to regret this...' - George Lucas, 1976. (re: George Lucas)

3D Printed Car Can Launch POV Drone
Just the thing for the Runaway squad - and you and me. (re: Michael Crichton)

Japanese AI Forms Suicidally Depressed Personality
'I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed.' - Douglas Adams, 1979. (re: Douglas Adams)

Duoskin Control Tattoo
'Three rows of four colored dots appeared on the heel of my left hand.'- John Varley, 1992. (re: John Varley)

Space Elevator Planned By Obayashi Corp
'And so to establish an elevator system linking Earth to space?' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1976. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Robot Deltu Is Ready To Play With You
'...A rattling pressing of the buttons.' - Schachner and Zagat, 1931. (re: Schachner and Zagat)

Luigi The Sewer Inspection Robot From MIT
Luigi is the second prototype - the first was? Mario, natch. (re: Various)

Smart Fabric Can Harvest Energy From Sunshine And Motion
'The clothes and jewellery drew their tiny power requirements from her movements.' - Alastair Reynolds, 2005. (re: Alastair Reynolds)

IBM's Neuromorphic Chip
'The full sensitivity of the neuristor brain was not appreciated at first.' - Roger Zelazny, 1976. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Russia's Protective Ferrite Fabric
'His suit-shield sucked in the energy and discharged it...'- Philip K. Dick, 1954. (re: Philip K Dick)

MiniMed 670G - First 'Artificial Pancreas' Approved By FDA
'Proved the workability of wholly mechanical organs...' - Philip K. Dick, 1964. (re: Philip K Dick)

iPal Nanny Robot Will Raise Your Kids
'Playfully, Nanny caught Bobby's arm with her grapple and drew him to her.' - Philip K. Dick, 1955. (re: Philip K Dick)

NVIDIA's DAVE2 Autonomous Car Learns From Drivers
'So we took pictures of Guzub making a Three Planets...' - Anthony Boucher, 1943. (re: Anthony Boucher)

Robots Don't Need To Be Humanoid
'People are used to android robots... They'll be scared of your unhuman-looking contraptions...' -Anthony Boucher, 1943. (re: Anthony Boucher)

Tractor Beams? They're Working On It
'Brandon swung mighty tractor beams...' - Doc Smith, 1931. (re: EE Doc Smith)

Hi-Yo Modobag! Away!
'A tumblebug does not give a man dignity...' - Robert Heinlein, 1941. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Snap Specs - Snapchat Spectacles - Are Video Glasses
'The old woman laid her wire-knitting aside and fixed them with the bug-eyed, opaque gape...' David Brin, 1990. (re: David Brin)

Reading A Scroll Burned To Charcoal
'The scope was adjusted to generate... an image of the lower section of the book.' - James P. Hogan, 1977 (re: James P. Hogan)

Robot Arrested In Moscow
They should have thrown a net over him. (re: Various)

Oh Great, Fence-Climbing Robots
How long till they add the acid-tipped stingers? (re: Michael Crichton)

Software Agents Fight Unseen On The Web
'...Worms and counter-worms loose on the data-net.' - John Brunner, 1975. (re: John Brunner)

Sandisk 1 Terabyte SD Memory Card Surfaces
'They should be Welton Fine-Grains, or they would be too bulky to ship...' - Robert Heinlein, 1973. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Carbyne, The Ultimate Form Of Carbon
'A continuous pseudo-one dimensional diamond crystal...'- Arthur C. Clarke, 1978. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Bradbury's Method Used In Search For Bombing Suspect
'He imagined thousands on thousands of faces peering into yards, into alleys...' - Ray Bradbury, 1953. (re: Ray Bradbury)

New Laser Space Debris Clearing More Subtle Than Clarke's
Rather than nudge them up, nudge them down. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Robots Learn To Swarm Safely
'They were bronzy gleams of smooth motion...' - Isaac Asimov, 1944. (re: Bruce Sterling)

Samsung's Smart Ring
'Crayn glanced at his finger watch...' HB Fyfe, 1951. (re: HB Fyfe)

Proposal To Use Lasers To Analyze Asteroids
'Wendis stared thoughtfully at the brilliant lines on the spectroscope screen.' - EC Tubb, 1958. (re: EC Tubb)

Autonomous Sumo Robot Wrestling Video
'The expressionless face before me was therefore that of the golem-wrestler...' - Roger Zelazny, 1968. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Fashion Needs To Step Up Technology Education
'Keeping up with advances in fashion is almost as easy as reading - if you're reading science fiction.' (re: Various)

Youbionic 3D Printed Hand A Dark Knight Masterpiece
'A self-contained robot of precision quality usually joined to his right wrist' (re: Philip K Dick)

Robots Now Know How To Cause Pain
'THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT...' (re: Harlan Ellison)

Once A Jolly Swagbot Camped By A Billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree. (re: Larry Niven)

Juno Gets Close To Jupiter, Fiction Gets Closer!
Amazing Juno spacecraft cozies up to the biggest planet in our solar system. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

NASA Submarine For Titan
'Straight away from the shore it swam, seeing nothing but flecks of paraffin...' - Michael Swanwick, 2002. (re: Michael Swanwick)

Sketching Robots May Displace Starving Artists
Jeez, robots, leave us with something. (re: Various)

Three Clues To Limb Regeneration
'Forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers...' - Frank Herbert, 1972. (re: Frank Herbert)

Soft Caterpillar Robot Powered By Light
'the spread-out "puddle" shape she used for soaking up sun...' - Rudy Rucker, 1997. (re: Rudy Rucker)

Converting Low Temp Waste Heat To Electricity
'Our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.' (re: Larry Niven)

Flex Robot Surgeon - Let's Hope You're Sedated
There are other insertion points, right, Neo? (re: Various)

Liquid Metal Terminator Development Hums Right Along
More research is needed - check! (re: Philip K Dick)

Kiwi Dominos Drone Pizza Delivery
If you can deliver diapers, you can deliver pizzas. (re: Robert Heinlein)

MIT Robot Helps Out In Delivery Room
Oooee nooomaa oooee. And you thought today's doctors were hard to understand. (re: George Lucas)

Self-Healing Textiles! Say Goodbye To Torn Jeans
'The constant renewal of the fibers, repairing any faults...' - JG Ballard, 1970. (re: JG Ballard)

Fleets Of Ford Autonomous Cars In 5 Years
'He urgently addressed the vehicle's AI."Can't we go any faster?' - Allan Dean Foster, 2006. (re: Allan Dean Foster)

Electric Head Patch Helps PTSD Patients
'Don't confuse this with the little ten amp neurosis models.' - Robert Sheckley, 1956. (re: Robert Sheckley)

MEDi Robot Calms The Nervous Patient
'Specially programmed stabilizing surrogate devices.' - Anne McCaffrey, 1990. (re: Anne McCaffrey)

NASA's Interplanetary Internet DTN
'This was the center of Interplanetary Communications.' - George O. Smith, 1942. (re: George O. Smith)

Superior Morals For Autonomous Cars
Exemplars of military and civic virtue. (re: Keith Laumer)

Housekeeping Robots Easy To Imagine, Tough To Make
George Jetson had it easy. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Augmented Reality On Construction Sites
'The walls had become blue glass...' - Niven and Barnes, 1992. (re: Niven and Barnes)

Moorebot Personal Assistant Robot
'...a full-size 38-tube fully automatic companion for you!' - Frederik Pohl, 1954. (re: Frederik Pohl)

One-Shot Gene Therapy Cure $665K
One shot - one cure. Guaranteed. (re: Various)

Laser 'Autonomous Target Selection' Now Available To Curiosity Rover
And, given the birthday situation, is this a good time? (re: Various)

Ultrasonic Wireless ‘Neural Dust’ Sensors For Medical Monitoring
'These dustmotes already had sensors and independence built in.' - Vernor Vinge, 2005. (re: Vernor Vinge)

Breathable Carbon Nanotube Membrane For 'Smart Uniforms'
'The 'skin's got these reflexes, changes its permeability...' - Peter Watts, 1999. (re: Peter Watts)

Record 1007 Robots Dance In Harbinger Of Doom
Okay, Sonny, I know you're out there. (re: Various)

Cicret Makes Your Skin Into A Display
'On the translucent mica-like coverings over the orifices, appeared reddish characters...' - Schachner and Zagat, 1931. (re: John Varley)

Tesla To Eye Future With New Sensors?
'I want to show you something new in the way of an automobile.' - David H. Keller, 1935. (re: David H. Keller)

Industrial Robot Tattoo Artist Is World's First
Let's get cut together. (re: Various)

Festo's AquaJellies 2.0
'It was a chemotactic artificial jellyfish designed to slither into undersea vents...' - Rucker/Sterling, 1994. (re: Rucker/Sterling)

SPIDER Repair Robots From Lockheed Martin Blimps
'The repair robots had started out on their rounds... making sure that the hull had not been damaged.' - Stanislaw Lem, 1954. (re: Stanislaw Lem)

Io's Sulphur Dioxide
'All the water in the air froze first and made a blanket ten feet thick or so...' - Fritz Lieber, 1951. (re: Fritz Lieber)

Would You Converse With Your Autonomous Car?
What's that, Artoo? I shouldn't be driving right now? (re: George Lucas)

Would Movable Houses Make Cities Better?
'He saw a house in the suburbs gently slide out of its place...' - Jane Webb Loudon, 1828. (re: Jane Webb Loudon)

Drone 100, Coordinated Drone Performance Team
'The real border was... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.' - Neal Stephenson, 1995. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Tethers Unlimited Satellite Mini-Thrusters
'They combined the absolute maximum of sheer thrust with the irreducible minimum of flyability.' - Murray Leinster, (re: Murray Leinster)

Sophie, Your Virtual Assistant
'What would you do, right now, if you were me? ...The joymaker answered without hesitation.' - Frederik Pohl, 1966. (re: Frederik Pohl)

Satellite Surveillance Reveals Guerrilla Drug Trade
'A photograph, taken from space, of part of the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. And see!' - Jack Williamson, 1931. (re: Jack Williamson)

Aerochromics Shirt Makes You An Air Quality Monitor
Clothing really should do more. (re: William Gibson)

Robots That 'Feel' Real Emotions
How do you feel about emotional robots and computers? No, really, you should share. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

In Vitro Meatballs For SciFi Spaghetti
'Large laboratories in every city had produced synthetic food and meats, grown in large test tubes..." - David H. Keller, 1933. (re: David H. Keller)

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Looks Nearby
'I... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching it for a habitable planet.'- Edmond Hamilton, 1936. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

Jackrabbit, The Polite Robot
Who doesn't want a more polite robot? (re: Various)

Mobility Scooters Go Offroad
'Noiselessly, on rubber-tired wheels, they journeyed down the long aisles...' - David H. Keller, 1928. (re: David H. Keller)

RAMST - Robotically Assembled Modular Space Telescope
'The eight thin metallic legs were pointed downwards, balanced delicately...' - Charles Sheffield, 1979. (re: Charles Sheffield)

Terminal Snooping At Bloomberg
'The evidence began with a slowed response at her computer terminal.' - Frank Herbert, 1977. (re: Frank Herbert)

Will There Be A Digital Afterlife?
'A quick exchange of energies resulting from the relocation of discorporate states.' - Samuel R. Delany, 1968. (re: Samuel R. Delany)

ROCKY - Resistive Overload Combined With Kinetic Yo-Yo
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses..' - Murray Leinster, 1953. (re: Murray Leinster)

China Bans Self-Driving Car Testing
Innovation hits some bumps. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Robotic Lawnmower Fulfills SciFi Homeowner's Dreams
'The mower reached the edge of the lawn, clucked to itself like a contented hen...' - Clifford Simak, 1944. (re: Clifford Simak)

7-Eleven Drone Delivers Chix Sandwich And Slurpee
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'- H. Beam Piper, 1962. (re: H. Beam Piper)

Beta-Ti3Au Titanium-Gold Alloy Hardest Tissue-Compatible Metal
It needs a more science-fictional name! (re: Various)

Solar Plane Circles The Globe
'Tropism-like pursuit of the sun across the sky as they recharged their batteries...' - Roger Zelazny (re: Roger Zelazny)

Audiobooks - Fastest Growing Format In Publishing
'The public preferred lectons...' - Stanislaw Lem, 1961. (re: Stanislaw Lem)

SuperMeat - Crowdfunding Pohl/Kornbluth's Chicken Little
'Chicken Little, who would be sliced and packed to feed people from Baffinland to Little America.' - Pohl and Kornbluth, 1952. (re: Pohl - Cornbluth)

Martian-Grown Food Might Be Fine
'I don’t want to come off as arrogant here, but I’m the best botanist on the planet.' - Andy Weir, 2014. (re: Andy Weir)

MARLO Robot Attempts Wave Field
'It is apparent that he will walk before his human brother.' - Henry Slesar, 1958. (re: Henry Slesar)

3RDiTEK Lifeblogging Headband Camera
'It's logging anyway - everything you see on duty goes into the black box.' - Charles Stross, 2007. (re: Charles Stross)

3D-Printed Biohybrid Is A Tissue-Engineered Robot
'The directing neurological tissue that forms the basis of the swibble is alive...' - Philip K Dick, 1955. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Steerable Locusts Detect Explosives
Science fiction writers again provide a blueprint for the future. (re: Thomas A. Easton)

No Human Drivers By 2040 - Israel
'It's been a criminal offense... to drive manually on a public highway.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1976. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Graphene Ultracapacitor Airships For Heavy Lifting
'The war-balloons were to be kept for purposes of transportation of heavy articles...' - George Griffith, 1893 (re: George Griffith)

Uber Hires Robot Security Guard
'The robot studied the identification clip.' - Philip K. Dick, 1955. (re: Philip K Dick)

Mind-Altering Drugs Administered Deep Into The Brain
'Happy to serve!'- Greg Bear, 2015. (re: Greg Bear)

Are There Diamond Planets?
'I believe the whole central portion of the earth is one great diamond.' - Frank Stockton, 1897. (re: Frank Stockton)

Robot Lawyers And Robot Judges Now Everywhere
'The law clerk arrived, a smallish robot with a battered stainless steel hide and dull coppery features.' - Frederik Pohl, 1954. (re: Frederik Pohl)

Roam-e Flying Selfie Drone Cam
'Tight mid-shot and pull out on but behind me...' -Karen Traviss, 2004. (re: Karen Traviss)

Chemputer To Grow Bespoke Drones Through Chemistry
'These are your rudimentary seed packages...' - Greg Bear, 2015. (re: Greg Bear)

Walmart Shopping Cart Robots Will Follow You
'...the machine would carry his bag in its soft plastic jaws...' - John Brunner, 1975. (re: John Brunner)

DoNotPay Lawyer Program Contests Parking Tickets
'I want my lawyer program.' - David Brin, 1990. (re: David Brin)

Real Leather Without Cows Modern Meadow Biofabrication
'Plastissue, as any fool can see...' - WF Wallace, 1952, (re: )

City Made Of Bone
'The cheapest building material known...' - Larry Niven, 1968. (re: Larry Niven)

SpotMini Robot Pierson's Puppeteer-Style
Now they're kind of cute, right? (re: Larry Niven)

Brick By Brick, Building Martian Bases
Don't try to boost everything from the surface of the Earth. (re: John W. Campbell)

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