Gated Communities Flourish - Offline and Online
Gated communities are gaining popularity - online and off. (re: Neal Stephenson)

Robots and Emotion: Tetchy the Turtle Meets HAL-9000
In 2001: A Space Odyssey and in I, Robot, robots had the ability to understand human emotion. Affective Media, based in Scotland, is working on it now. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Man vs. Machine: Surviving Compaction In A Garbage Truck
In a classic story of man versus machine that took place right in my own home town, a homeless man in Ann Arbor, Michigan survived compaction in a garbage truck. (re: George Lucas)

Encyclopedia Googleactica - Google To Put All Human Knowledge Online
Google to put ten million books online; thank goodness for google. Of course, we're still waiting for Google Audio (TM) and Google Video (TM)... (re: Robert Heinlein)

ROKVISS Telepresence Robot Heading To Space Station
The ROKVISS robot will leave Earth aboard the Progress M-51 spaceship on December 24th. Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov and astronaut Leroy Chiao will install the German robot on the outside of the International Space Station. (re: Niven/Pournelle)

Imagine The Future Of The Space Elevator
Here's your chance to help science meet fiction. The 2005 Clarke-Bradbury International Science Fiction competition has just been announced by the European Space Agency's Technology Transfer and Promotion office. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Superconducting Magnetic Bubble To Protect Astronauts From Radiation
Astronauts on long voyages through the solar system will be exposed to lethal doses of radiation from cosmic rays. Former astronaut Jeffery Hoffman has recieved funding from NASA through NIAC (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts) to research the ide (re: Larry Niven)

Nomad Virtual-Cockpit Helmet-Mounted Display
Commanders in the field need better situational awareness; Microvision has created the Nomad Virtual-Cockpit Helmet-Mounted Display. (re: David Drake)

Terminator Tether - EDT Solution To Space Debris Update
Studies have shown that low Earth orbit is not a limitless resource and should be managed more carefully. Some sort of debris-mitigation measures are needed to solve the problem of old, unusable satellites and space junk. (re: Various)

Delta IV Heavy Lifter - Space Freighters In Fact And In Fiction
The twenty-three story Delta IV Heavy rocket vehicle will go aloft sometime this week (if the weather holds). (re: Robert Heinlein)

Burj Tower In Dubai To Be World's Tallest Building
What is the tallest building in the world? Right now, it is the TFC 101 building in Taiwan - 509 meters tall. Not for long, though; Emaar Properties has awarded a contract to Samsung for $847 million to build the Burj Tower. (re: Isaac Asimov)

Robotic Fish From China
A robotic fish designed for underwater archaeology, mapping, water cultivation and even fishing has been co-developed by the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. (re: Michael Swanwick)

Universal Whistling Machine - The Future Of Non-Verbal Communications
Canadian artists Marc Bohlen and J.T. Rinker want to change the way that you interact with your favorite electronic devices. Tired of tiny keyboards, poor speech recognition or incomprehensible interfaces? (re: George Lucas)

Crime-Fighting Computer - The Game's Afoot 24x7
Computer scientists in Chicago have created the Classification System for Serial Criminal Patterns (CSSCP), a computer system that uses pattern-recognition software to sift through case records to find the link (and the perpetrator) connecting differ (re: Harry Harrison)

Ornithopters In Fact And Fiction
An ornithopter (a flapping wing aircraft) under development at the University of Toronto's Institute for Aerospace Studies may yet make Leonardo da Vinci's dream a reality. Frank Herbert fully visualized them in Dune. (re: Frank Herbert)

Planetary Parks Proposed For Mars Conservation
A set of seven 'planetary parks' have been proposed for the conservation of the martian environment by two European scientists. (re: Alfred Bester)