Science Fiction in the News:
Science and Technology News

Deep Speech 2: Mandarin and English Recognized
'the words came to the ear in perfect English...' - Frank Stockton, 1901. (re: Frank Stockton)

Robots Will Learn From Each Other
'Talk Between Robots radio...' - Frederik Pohl, 1954. (re: Frederik Pohl)

Bionic Eyes Coming Up In Australia
We can build a new you, if not rebuild you. (re: Various)

Army Wants Invisibility Cloaks
No, you can't see me. Nope, not here. (re: Ray Cummings)

Can Bacteria Provide Food In Space?
At least the scop was improving... - Bruce Sterling, 1988. (re: Bruce Sterling)

Fully Autonomous Vehicles In 2 Years - Musk
'The beautiful old car cruised... under the guidance of its automatic controls...' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1976 (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

NASA Wants To Grow Potatoes On Mars
Will Martian potatoes turn out to be red skins? (re: Andy Weir)

Mattel Bug Racer Driven By Live Cricket
'With wheels they could move along... and manipulate with their fronds and tendrils.' - Vernor Vinge, 1992. (re: Vernor Vinge)

Netflix Smart Socks Know When You Doze Off
'Presently the speed control slipped out of her relaxed fingers, the lights went out and she slept.' - Robert Heinlein, (re: Robert Heinlein)

Do You Really Want Your Car To Talk To Pedestrians?
'Robots have worse problems than anybody' - Philip K. Dick, 1952. (re: Philip K Dick)

XSTAT 30 - Plugs Wounds In 15 Seconds!
'It's done miracles. It can patch up a smashed and broken body...' - Clifford Simak, (re: Clifford Simak)

Microsupercapacitors Make Wearable Electronics Disappear
'He pressed the button in his sleeve communicator...' - Murray Leinster, 1945. (re: Rudy Rucker)

NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission
'[Asteroid] Eighty-eight received a series of gentle pats, always on the side headed along her course...' - Robert Heinlein, 1939. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Can You Give A Robot A Conscience?
Do roboticists have a conscience? I guess you could start with that. (re: Various)

California Proposes Ban On Driverless Vehicles
'She gestured him ahead of her, toward a bubble-car...'- Larry Niven, 1976. (re: Larry Niven)

3D Printing Microparticles
'Finest quality. Superior workmanship...' - Ridley Scott, 1982. (re: Ridley Scott)

Drone Catches Drone! In Japan
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.' - Neal Stephenson, 1995 (re: Neal Stephenson)

Space Synthetic Biology Grand Challenges
'What better purifying machine is there than a plot of grass?' - George O. Smith, (re: George O. Smith)

The Time-Traveling Quantum Computer
'His closed-timeline-curve time-travel computing machine.' Stephen Baxter, 2004. (re: Stephen Baxter)

Robots Should Start Out As Babies
'He is beginning to learn control of his limbs: it is apparent that he will walk before his human brother.' (re: David H. Keller)

Internet Needs 'Hate Spell Checker' - Eric Schmidt
'He adjusted the n, the r and b knobs, and hopefully anticipated a turn for the better...' - Philip K. Dick, 1964. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Hybrid Chips: Solid-State Device With Integrated Biological Cells
'Living protoplasm incorporated into the Ampek F-a2 recording system...' - Philip K. Dick, 1966 (re: Philip K. Dick)

Electrochromic FIlm For Smart Windows
'The glass had been muted to dark blue.' - Frank Herbert, 1972. (re: Frank Herbert)

Aerial Assault Drone Looking For Padme's Apartment
"I can sense everything that is happening in that room.' (re: )

Store Electricity In Paper - Next Stop, E-Paper!
'It looked exactly like a dirty, wrinkled, blank sheet of paper.' - Neal Stephenson, 1995. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Guide A Telepresence Robot With Your Mind
'The floor was hard and smooth and of a bright blue color and a very easy for him to roll on.' - Clifford Simak, 1961. (re: Clifford Simak)

MIT 3D Scanner - 1000x Improvement?
'... Feeler-planes brushed down...' - Jack Vance, 1954. (re: Jack Vance)

'It Feels Like Robocop - Without A Weapon
Gandhi's exoskeleton? (re: Fritz Leiber)

Naviator Drone Flies - And Swims
Every sub commander wants a Flying Sub! (re: Irwin Allen)

Niven's King's Free Park - In Toronto
'King's Free Park had been part of the San Diego Freeway...' - Larry Niven, 1970. (re: Larry Niven)

'Ingestibles' Are Medical Devices You Can Swallow
These devices get smaller and more capable. (re: Various)

Solowheel Xtreme Heinlein Tumblebug Video
'The cadets 'stood to horse' alongside their poised tumblebugs...' - Robert Heinlein, 1940. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Algorithm Predicts Marriage Success (HAL 9000 Will See You Now)
'I can tell from your voice harmonics, Dave, that you're badly upset....' - Arthur C. Clarke (re: Philip K Dick)

Denmark Island Earth (Verdenskortet ala Ringworld)
'They wanted to keep something of what they were losing...' - Larry Niven, 1970. (re: Larry Niven)

Humai Startup To Implant Your Brain In Robot Body
'The astounded onlookers saw a human brain snugly encased in a transparent skull-shaped receptacle.' - Otis Adelbert Kline (re: Otis Adelbert Kline)

Blue Origin Reusable Rocket's Vertical Landing
We're getting there, one launch at a time. Nice going, Blue Origins! (re: Various)

X125 Snake-Arm Inspection Robot Video
'... long, flexible, glittering tentacles...' - HG Wells, 1898. (re: HG Wells)

Super-Thin Smart Glazing Displays
'...a wide sheet of clear material suddenly flared with light and swirling color.'- EC Tubb, 1958. (re: EC Tubb)

Have Scientists Found A Parallel Universe Leaking Into Ours
'Ellis had found a weak point, a shimmer, at which another continuum completely had been visible.' - Philip K. Dick, 1966. (re: Philip K Dick)

Active Wellness Smart Car Seat
'Maybe the car was right...' - Philip K. Dick, 1963. (re: Philip K Dick)

Tech Tats Prototype Sfnal Devices
'...Permanently fixed in the centre of his forehead.' - (re: Brian Aldiss)

ANNABELL AI Can Learn English From Scratch
'...Could understand not only classic programming but also Loglan and English..." - Robert Heinlein, 1966. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Tesla Suit Gives Haptic Hugs
'Then a pressure on the lips...' - Frederik Pohl, 1965. (re: Frederik Pohl)

Surgically Implantable Artificial Kidney Starts Testing
'George Walt... proved the workability of wholly mechanical organs...' - Philip K. Dick, 1964. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Self-Filling Water Bottle Is Beetle-Based
'That moisture trickles down...', Frank Herbert, 1965. (re: Frank Herbert)

Senate Passes Space Mining Legislation
'The law of filing on newly discovered asteroids was definite...' - Nat Schachner, 1941. (re: Nat Schachner)

Microsoft's Surface Book Is Part Clipboard
'Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man's quest for perfect communications...' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1968. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Police Use Predictive Maps ala 'Minority Report' Routinely
'...the data-receptors, and the computing mechanisms that studied and restructured the incoming material.' - Philip K. Dick, 1956. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Tesla Autopilot Road Trip 2995 Miles, 57 Hours
'The beautiful old car cruised ... under the guidance of its automatic controls...' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1976. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

The 'Marching Mountains' Of Pluto
Calling Captain Future! Your time has come. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

Graphene Thermopile May Grant Predator Heat Vision To Humans
'What the hell are you?' Predator vision systems at work. (re: Various)

BitDrones Flying Microbots Model Programmable Matter
'... as though a child should build from nursery blocks a fantastic shape which abruptly is filled with throbbing life.'- Abraham Merritt, 1920. (re: Abraham Merritt)

Starship Turbolift Elevators Coming From ThyssenKrupp AG
Your sideways elevator is getting closer to your floor. (re: Gene Roddenberry)

LineFORM MIT's Shape-Changing Interface
'For an interval, the device struggled with itself...' - Philip K. Dick, 1957. (re: Philip K. Dick)

LM3D Swim First 3D-Printed Production Car
'Almost as good as the original it was printed from…' - Philip K. Dick, 1956. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Protopiper Lets You Sketch Full-Size Objects In Real Space
'Plastic comes out of the end of the drawing arm and hardens...'- Murray Leinster, 1945. (re: Murray Leinster)

AI Trainers: Assisting Artificial Intelligences
'[Ava] wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew...' - Amitav Ghosh, 1995. (re: Amitav Ghosh)

New Glass Tough As Steel
'Windows of an artificial transparent element...'' - Olaf Stapledon, 1930. (re: Olaf Stapledon)

FORTIS Exoskeleton Not Quite Ripley's Alien-Fighting Exoskeleton
'Earth's scientists solved the problem to some extent by devising rigid metallic clothing...' - Edmond Hamilton, 1932. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

Kirobo Mini - Your Dashboard Droid
No protocol droid needed for translation! (re: George Lucas)

RF-Capture Lets MIT Boffins See Through Walls
'A television set that would see through walls...' - Nat Schachner, 1936. (re: Nat Schachner)

Reduce Hurricanes By Altering The Atmosphere
'When yon volcanoes belch gas, the maintenance posts fire jets of tailored algae into the air stream.' - Niven and Pournelle, 1974. (re: Niven and Pournelle)

Second Skin Clothing By Biologic Changes With You
'A dress can change its color and texture in a few seconds...' - JG Ballard, 1970. (re: JG Ballard)

Skin Sensor Signals Brain
'Which permitted it to gauge to an ounce the amount of pressure necessary...' - Roger Zelazny, 1966. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Blackest Black? New Disordered Nanostructured Material
'Well, we have a black coating now that’s ninety-nine percent absorptive...' - Doc Smith, 1934. (re: Doc Smith)

3D Printed Soft Robotic Tentacle May Grab You
'Monique's tissues had at least three other basic attractor modes as well...' - Rudy Rucker, 1997. (re: Rudy Rucker)

UK's Self-Repairing Cities
'The city was divided into two sections, a section of many strata where machines functioned smoothly...' - John W. Campbell, 1934. (re: John W. Campbell)

Gene-Edited Muscle Dogs From China
'Its skull was improbably high-domed and its eyes, deep-set, were disturbingly uncanine.' - John Brunner, 1975. (re: John Brunner)

Sprint Wants Sales Robots
'Robot-salesmen were everywhere, gesturing, pleading...' - Philip K Dick, 1954. (re: Philip K Dick)

3D Printed Pluto And Charon, For Imperial Collectors
'It was the kind of globe made for wealthy collectors or planetary governors of the Empire.' - Frank Herbert, 1965. (re: Frank Herbert)

Tesla's New Autopilot, With Test Drive Video
'As the beautiful old car cruised in almost perfect silence under the guidance of its automatic controls...' (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Do You, Human, Take This Robot...?
'Streamlined, smooth-working, absolutely noiseless, breath-takingly realistic.' - Fritz Lieber, 1954. (re: Alice W. Fuller)

Boeing Creates Lightest Metal Ever
'A metal that was apparently as light as cork and stronger than steel...' - Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1929. (re: Edgar Rice Burroughs)

MIT's Microwave Camera Sees Through Walls
'Through the lenses of those goggles Costigan's keen and highly-trained eyes studied every concealed detail...' - EE 'Doc' Smith, 1934. (re: EE 'Doc' Smith)

A Solar System Swept Clean - For A Dyson Swarm
'They cleaned it out...' - Larry Niven, 1970 (re: Larry Niven)

QRoSS Robot Inspired By Star Wars Droidekas
'They are no match for droidekas...' - George Lucas, 1999. (re: George Lucas)

Will The Dashboard Disappear From Autonomous Cars?
'No controls and no instruments...' - James Blish, 1957. (re: James Blish)

Nifty 3D Printed Flexible Robotic Finger
'It's motion was so swift, complex, and perfect that at first I did not see it as a machine...' - HG Wells, 1898. (re: HG Wells)

Harvard's Robobees Now 'Fly' Underwater
'...the Scarab buzzed into the great workroom as any intruding insect might, and sought the security of a shadowed corner.' - Raymond Z Gallun, 1936. (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

ADEPT Heat Shield Works For Mars
'...A synthetic which air-friction would erode away...' - EE Doc Smith, 1934. (re: EE 'Doc' Smith)

Ultralight Origami Crane UAV Flexes Its Wings
'They began to flex their wings.' - (re: Roger Zelazny)

UM Solar Car Now Also With IBM Research Power
'It drew its power from six square yards of sunpower screens on its low curved roof.' - Robert Heinlein, 1940. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Robot-Based Trash Collection
'Robots pick up the garbage and junk and load it in there...' - Harry Harrison, 1956. (re: Harry Harrison)

Warrior Web Exoskeleton For Soldiers Undergoes Tests
'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)

Tesla Promises Fully Autonomous Cars By 2018
It's been a criminal offense for at least a hundred years to drive manually on a public highway.- Arthur C. Clarke, 1976. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Light Molecules (And Maybe Light Sabers, Someday)
'It will be matter, matter made of light...'- John W. Campbell, 1930. (re: John W. Campbell)

Telepresence In The Office
'That led to his development of robot probes; small devices with cameras and sound equipment which could move freely... under direct control.' - Niven and Pournelle, 1981. (re: Niven and Pournelle)

Piper, Google's 2 Billion Line Code Repository, Needs A Cool Display
'The student pointed a finger and as he did so, the line of equations marched down the wall...' - Isaac Asimov, 1953. (re: Isaac Asimov)

WEpod Driverless Vehicle On The Netherlands Roads
'The car moved smoothly away. Mirelly-Lyra half relaxed; she was not steering.' - Larry Niven, 1978. (re: Larry Niven)

Computer Predicts Psychosis Better Than Psychiatrists
'The mechanism which was the portable extension of Dr. Smile...' - Philip K. Dick, 1965. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Robot Evolution Needs Mass Extinction Events
'It was small, one of the baby ones.'- Philip K. Dick, 1953. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Lab-Grown Kidneys Implanted Successfully - In Animals
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the Hospital to get treatment with the ramrobot symbiots'- Larry Niven, 1968. (re: Larry Niven)

Korean Lab Ready To Clone Your Dog
Man's best friend. Man's best friend. Man's best friend. (re: Various)

DARPA NeuroTech Hand With Natural Sensation
'Take care, sir.' Robotic installation of feeling robotic hand not quite ready, Mr. Lucas. (re: George Lucas)

Nuke Mars To Terraform It, Says Elon Musk
'... Mars could not be made habitable without first being stocked with air and water...' - Olaf Stapledon, 1930. (re: Olaf Stapledon)

Texas-Sized Ice Slab Found On Mars
'That's okay, still ice in The Rock and a miner expects to sound for it...'- Robert Heinlein, 1966. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Invisible Drones Will (Not) Appear Over Your Town
'Light-waves are bent around it without loss or distortion.' - Doc Smith, 1939. (re: EE 'Doc Smith)

Transwheel Drone Robotic Delivery Vehicle
One good single-wheel delivery concept deserves another. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Cool Chaac Ha Dew Collector Video
'The surface condenses moisture out of the air...' - Frank Herbert, 1965. (re: Frank Herbert)

NASA Turns To Museum Space Shuttles For Parts
Tropes true to life. (re: Niven & Pournelle)

Ecocapsule - Simak's Dream Of A Prefab House
'They are heated and air conditioned by a solar plant that tops anything... that we have today.' - Clifford Simak, 1952. (re: Clifford Simak)

New Super Slippery Surface Better Than Nature's
'The water flowed off those walls without binding tension.'- Frank Herbert, 1965. (re: Frank Herbert)

Killer Robot COTSBot Stalks Starfish
'X-120's long jointed arms swung swiftly. The tiny animal lay crushed...' - Joseph Kelleam, 1939. (re: Joseph E. Kelleam)

Heart-In-A-Box Saves Organ For Later
'Storage in the hospital's organ banks...' - Larry Niven, 1967. (re: Larry Niven)

MultiFab 10-Material 3D Printer
'On the concrete platform, in front of the dying Biltong, lay a heap of originals to be duplicated.' - Philip K. Dick, 1956. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Chaac Ha Dew Collector ala Dune
'The surface condenses moisture out of the air. That moisture trickles down...' - Frank Herbert, 1965. (re: Frank Herbert)

Digital Immortality For Your Personality
'You've got remote storage. How regular is the update?' - Richard Morgan, 2003. (re: William Gibson)

Robots Take Our Jobs By Reading Our Instructions
'The Talk Between Robots radio...' - Frederik Pohl, 1954. (re: Frederik Pohl)

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

Flimmer Navy Drone Flies And Swims
Launch the Flying Sub! (re: Irwin Allen)

Taser Drones Now Legal In North Dakota
'I sent my eyes on their rounds and tended my gallery of one hundred-thirty changing pictures...' - Roger Zelazny, 1966. (re: Roger Zelazny)

Growing Metal In The Shape You Want
What more do you need, engineers? (re: Frank Herbert)

Self-Healing Materials For Spacecraft
'It even had an inter-skin layer of gum that sealed the punctures...'- Raymond Z. Gallun, 1951. (re: Raymond Z. Gallun)

World's First Full-Colour, Flexible Thin-Film Reflective Display
'A wide sheet of clear material suddenly flared with light and swirling colour....' - EC Tubb, 1958. (re: EC Tubb)

Jazz AI Compliments Of DARPA
'I request that you feed the correlation between those dots and the levers of the panel into my memory banks.' - Herbert Goldstone, 1953. (re: Herbert Goldstone)

Tasty Space Lettuce!
Having tested, we tasted. (re: Gregory Benford)

See LG OLED Wallpaper - Amazing Video
'... television that unrolled like a poster' -Larry Niven, 1976. (re: Larry Niven)

Canada's Inflatable Space Elevator Tower
"...establish an elevator system linking Earth to space?"- Arthur C. Clarke, 1976. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Ekso Works Industrial Exoskeleton
'Earth's scientists [devised] rigid metallic clothing not unlike armor...'- Edmond Hamilton, 1932. (re: Edmond Hamilton)

Mother Robot Evolves Her Children
'The Robot Mother... the most dangerous thing in creation.' - Eric Frank Russell, 1941. (re: Maurice A. Hugi)

Cheetah 2 Robot Now Leaps Obstacles To Get You
'The legs are long, curled way up to deliver power, like a cheetah's.'- Neal Stephenson, 1992. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Xiaoice Will Text You And Be Your Friend
'If you spoke English, results might be whimsical...'- Robert Heinlein, 1966. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Synthetic Coral To Clean The Seas?
'Numberless capillaries arranged in a belt around the smart coral reef...'- Neal Stephenson, 1995. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Organoids Galore!
'Runciter's body contained a dozen artiforgs...'- Philip K. Dick, 1969. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Artificial Gravity? Why Not?
'The artificial gravity-controls in the base of the ship... were being tampered with!' - Ray Cummings (re: Ray Cummings)

Hackers Can Take Control Of Cars From Anywhere In The World
'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...' - Keith Laumer, 1965. (re: Keith Laumer)

Armed Drone Opens Fire
'Each a television eye and a sonic stunner...' - Larry Niven, 1972. (re: Larry Niven)

Robotic Exoskeleton Releases Man From Wheelchair
'This man was standing on two corrugated-soled titanium footplates...'- Fritz Leiber, 1968. (re: Fritz Leiber)

Oh, Just Let Robots Run Airports
I'd like a friendly robot to help me at airports. Especially the bag-carrying part. (re: John Brunner)

How Smart Should AI's Be Allowed To Get?
'Every AI ever built has an electromagnetic shotgun wired to its forehead' - William Gibson, 1984. (re: William Gibson)

NASA Misses $5Trillion Funding Boost
'This must be a golden planet—this little asteroid.' - Garrett P. Serviss, 1898. (re: Garrett P. Serviss)

Kuwait Creates Mandatory DNA Database For Citizens
And who has the largest DNA database on its citizens? USA. (re: Andrew Niccol)

Please, Please Let There Be Regenerated Teeth
'Toothbud transplants...' - William Gibson, 1984. (re: William Gibson)

Google AI 'Deep Dreams' Kubrick's 2001
'I was only trying to do what I thought best....' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1968. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

The BLITAB: First Tactile Tablet for Blind People
Absolutely amazing development - now blind people can read the web! (re: Various)

Why, Oh Why, Must We Develop Robots That Run Faster Than I Do?
'The legs are long, curled way up to deliver power, like a cheetah's.'- Neal Stephenson, 1992. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Golf Robot Putts Out
'The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...' - Frederik Pohl, 1954. (re: Frederik Pohl)

Computer Finds Cancer Doctors Miss
The computer will see you now. (re: Larry Niven)

Would Robot Taxis Ease Carbon Emissions?
'He emerged and flagged down a robot taxi...'- Philip K. Dick, 1955, (re: Philip K. Dick)

Brainwaves As Biometric Identification
'The doors of Mr. Lars, Incorporated, shut, tuned as they were to his own cephalic pattern.'- Philip K. Dick, 1965. (re: Philip K. Dick)

What-If Machine Concocts Creative Premises
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.' George Orwell, 1948. (re: George Orwell)

Underwater Balloon Gardens
'He puffed heavily as he angled around the bulbous lifezones...'- Gregory Benford, 1989. (re: Gregory Benford)

Storing 1 Zettabyte In 10 Grams
'It is theoretically possible to have a matrix in which each individual molecule has a meaning...'- Robert Heinlein, 1951. (re: Robert Heinlein)

Laser-Powered Spacecraft To Explore The Solar System
'Whoever launched it fired a laser cannon... for about forty-five years, so the intruder would have a beam to travel on...'- Niven/Pournelle, 1974. (re: Niven/Pournelle)

Skin Chair For That 'Sitting On A Fat Guy' Feeling
'The semi-sentient artifact glided to a position behind McKie...' -Frank Herbert, 1964. (re: Frank Herbert)

Pneumatic Micro-Tentacles Kidnapping Ants
'Long, flexible, glittering tentacles...'- H.G. Wells, 1898. (re: H.G. Wells)

Bee Narcs To Perform Drug 'Stings'
'Time for a replacement of both Behren and his dipterous insect...'- Philip K. Dick, 1964. (re: Philip K. Dick)

3D Printed Spherical Flying Machine
'Gold dots against blue, basketball-sized, twelve feet up....' - Larry Niven, 1972. (re: Larry Niven)

Airbus E-Fan All-Electric Plane Now Ready
I couldn't believe it, either. An amazing technical feat. (re: John W. Campbell)

Robot Swarms Improve Culture By Forgetting
'My mind was filled to the splitting point...' - Roger Zelazny, 1976. (re: Roger Zelazny)

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