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"I can remember when the first pulsars were discovered. I was able to go and sit down and listen to graduate students talking about what their theories, to explain what pulsars really were."
- Vernor Vinge

High Tech Trash Can  
  The future of waste management.  

It's friendly, it comes when you call, it's - a trash can? If you are really determined to clean up, this is what you need.

She looked up the beach for the local trash can.

She spotted it loitering near a pair of fisherman, who stood in hip boots in the gentle surf. She called out. "Trash can!"

The can pivoted on broad rubber treads and rolled toward her voice. It snuffled across the beach, mapping its way with bursts of infrasound….

The can intoned. "Galveston appreciates good citizenship. ?Would you like to register for a valuable cash prize?"

Technovelgy from Islands in the Net, by Bruce Sterling.
Published by William Morrow in 1988
Additional resources -

Naturally, it is solar-powered.

Compare to the robot trash collectors from The Velvet Glove by Harry Harrison.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Islands in the Net
  More Ideas and Technology by Bruce Sterling
  Tech news articles related to Islands in the Net
  Tech news articles related to works by Bruce Sterling

High Tech Trash Can-related news articles:
  - Berlin Gets Talking Trash Cans
  - BigBelly Solar-Powered Trash Can - Good/Evil?
  - Sociable Garbabge Can Robot
  - Smartphone Monitoring Trashcans Binned
  - Robotic Trash Can Wants Your Garbage

Articles related to Misc
Is There A Subterranean Ocean?
The Robotic Shopping Cart Of The Future
Arctic Resource Jackpot An Old Wish
Marie Curie's Papers Still Radioactive

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Science Fiction in the News

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'... another corner of his mind began to think about the shields.'

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A massive space borne lifeform from ST:TNG.

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'Michel Ardan, as a Frenchman, was declared chief cook, an important function, which raised no rival.'

Amazing Photonic Crystal Light Sail
'That sail will be twenty thousand miles at the wide part.'

Rogue AI Replicated Itself
'Sapiro’s computer just kept dialing at random, hanging up on humans, until it got a fellow computer of the same type as itself.'

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'I request that you feed the correlation between those dots and the levers of the panel into my memory banks.'

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