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"I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers."
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At the start of the movie Runaway, Jack Ramsay and his new partner are called in to work with an agricultural robot that is out of control and zigzagging around in a corn field.
He gets the lowdown from his staff.
This movie agro-bot (or just agbot) has a very nicely programmed sense of touch; it can pick a larva off a leaf easily.
(Agro-bot performs pest control) It turns out that Crichton or his special effects guys must have been paying attention to the robotics news. The first intelligent agricultural robot (as opposed to farm machinery) was tested in use for tomato harvesting in Tampa, Florida in 1983. Read these related stories; AgBots: Agricultural Robots Take The Field and Robotic Tomato Harvester Ready For Space. Take a look at an interesting journal article on Agro-Robotics here; it includes a set of links to some interesting papers. Compare to the automatic cultivators from Piracy Preferred (1930) by John W. Campbell, the conscious farm machines from The Hidden Colony (1935) by Otfrid von Hanstein, the robot farmer from The Turning Wheel (1954) by Philip K. Dick, the field minder from Who Can Replace A Man (1963) by Brian Aldiss, the Robomule from Bill the Galactic Hero (1965) by Harry Harrison, the self-guided tractor from At the Bottom of a Hole (1966) by Larry Niven and the robot crab from Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson. Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Science Fiction
Timeline
Brin's 1990 Novel Earth Still Full Of Predictions
'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
Gaia - Why Stop With Just The Earth?
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
Microsoft VASA-1 Creates Personal Video From A Photo
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
Splendid View Of Eclipse From Orbit Visualized And Repurposed By Arthur C. Clarke
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
Vast Apartment Living Will Get Even More Vast
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
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