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"A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Ident Darts | ||
| Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that track individuals. |
Just a brief mention in the story.
| "You shouldn't be foning so soon," the doctor said as he studied his chart. "Mr. Garson Poole, owner of Tri-Plan Electronics. Maker of random ident darts that track their prey for a circle-radius of a thousand miles, responding to unique enceph wave patterns. |
| Technovelgy from The Electric Ant,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Mercury Press in 1969 Additional resources -
|
Dick was fascinated by the concept of recognizing people or tracking them via brain patterns - via electroencephalograph. In his 1965 novel The Zap Gun he writes about a door that opens only for the correct brain wave pattern (see Cephalic Pattern Door). Also, in his 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly, he wrote about a Cephalochromoscope (Cephscope), which offered recreational uses for brain waves.
There is a precursor to the idea of an autonomous machine that could track people based on their brain waves; see mechanical cobra from Roger Zelazny's Hugo-awardwinning 1967 novel Lord of Light.
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'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'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?'
'...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.'
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'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
