Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"The answer to the problem of information overload on the Net is reputations… engineer a system called a reputation server."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Virtual Childrearing | ||
| Learn childcare the virtual way; maybe long distance childcare, too. |
Did you ever have the feeling that game design was in too few hands? Consider this possibility.
In this passage, Gaia and her friends are sharing a virtual reality space from widely separated locations. The narrator, her husband, is watching her in the real world, in their needle-gym.
| Naturally, I couldn't see or hear Gaia's companions --presumably other women
gatherers in the same simulated tribe she had been visiting since years before
we met. She stopped again, listening, then turned around. "It's your baby,
Flower. That's okay, I'll take care of him." She laughed. "I need the practice."
I watched her gently pick up an invisible child. Her body suit tugged and contracted, mimicking a wriggly weight in her arms. Awkwardly, Gala cooed at an infant who dwelled only in a world of software, and her mind. I crept away to take a shower, at once ashamed of spying and glad that I had. |
| From Natulife,
by David Brin. Published by Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1994 Additional resources -
|
In reading this, it's clear that Gaia can get practice in caring for this baby in a virtual environment. But is this virtual baby the avatar of a real child, whose virtual reality suit is now feeding back Gaia's care to him or her?
Comment/Join this discussion ( 1 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Natulife
More Ideas
and Technology by David Brin
Tech news articles related to Natulife
Tech news articles related to works by David Brin
| Sex In Driverless Cars? Updated With Video! |
| Xinhua AI Anchor Puts CGI Face To Automated News |
| Wirewax Watching You Watch, Adjusting Your Experience |
| Disney Keeps Backups Of Star Wars Franchise Actors |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to ... erase the other internal-external damage.'
'Of course, being negative matter, when you push it, it comes toward you..'
'They'll also start pulling in gases and liquids from the local atmosphere...'
'The plastex swam and whirled like boiling toothpaste...'
'The object is built up of an infinite series of plane layers, at the focus of the ray...'
'... the computing mechanisms that studied and restructured the incoming material.'
'... an instrument having relatively small bit pieces adapted to be gripped between the teeth.'
'A procession of automatic ore carts was racing over the bleak slag'
'The cab was an egg-shaped bubble of light metals and plastics...'
