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"I did more research, and realized I almost would rather be a biologist than a writer, because there was incredible stuff going on!"
- Greg Bear
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| Smartcab | ||
| An automated taxicab, fully self-driving, that can be summoned from a portable device. |
Very early description of something like an Uber, where you use your pocket-sized device to bring a taxicab straight to your location.
| Rayno ordered up a smartcab and we piled out of Buddy's. No more riding the transys for us, we were going in style! We charged the smartcab off to some law company and cruised all over Eastside.
Riding the boulevards got stale after awhile, so we rerouted to the library. We do a lot of our fun at the library, 'cause nobody ever bothers us there. Nobody ever goes there. We sent the smartcab, still on the law company account, off to Westside. |
| Technovelgy from Cyberpunk!,
by Bruce Bethke. Published by Amazing Stories in 1983 Additional resources -
|
Here's another excerpt about smartcabs:
We got a smartcab outside the library and went off to someplace Lisa picked for lunch. Georgie got this idea about garbaging up the smartcab's brain so that the next customer would have a real state fair ride, but Rayno wouldn't let him do it. Rayno didn't talk to him during lunch, either.
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and Technology from Cyberpunk!
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Tech news articles related to works by Bruce Bethke
| Japan Automated Cargo Transport |
| Tesla Electric 'Giga Train' Operational In Germany |
| San Francisco Autobus |
| Volvo's Autonomous Truck |
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'... an artificial intelligence equal to the human.'
'Rayno folded up the microterm and tucked it back inside his jumper.'
'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.'
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.'
'Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement.'
'Norman... had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems.'
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
'As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped...'
'At the ringside opposite them a table had been removed to make room for a large transparent plastic capsule on wheels.'
