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"the [science fiction] writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true...and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Phantoscope (phenomenoscope) | ||
| A device that provides you with a computer-operable display; can be worn or surgically implanted right on your own eyes. |
I love the details in this sort of technovelgy - not just the device, but a description of how the device is used intentionally by a user, and how others might take advantage of the device. This sounds just like what our world's friendly corporations might do.
| You could get a phantoscopic system planted directly on your retinas...You could even get telaesthetics patched into your spinal column at key vertebrae. But this was said to have its drawbacks ... it was rumored that hackers for big media companies had figured out a way to get through the defenses that were built into such systems, and run junk advertisements in your peripheral vision (or even spang in the ... middle all the time - even when your eyes were closed. Bud knew a guy like that who's somehow gotten infected with a meme that ran advertisements for roach motels, in Hindi, superimposed on the bottom right-hand corner of his visual field, twenty-four hours a day, until the guy whacked himself. |
| Technovelgy from The Diamond Age,
by Neal Stephenson. Published by Bantam Books in 1995 Additional resources -
|
Actually, there is already a real phantoscope. It was an early device for viewing motion pictures developed in 1895 by Charles Francis Jenkins. It was a variation on the Edison Kinetoscope. It was renamed the Vitascope, and further developed by Thomas Edison.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Diamond Age
More Ideas
and Technology by Neal Stephenson
Tech news articles related to The Diamond Age
Tech news articles related to works by Neal Stephenson
Phantoscope (phenomenoscope)-related
news articles:
- JewelEye - Innovative Body Piercing Update
| Did Frank Herbert Predict Bistable Displays Like E-Ink? |
| I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display |
| Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large |
| iPhone Air Fulfils Jobs' Promise From 2007 - A Giant Screen! |
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'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
