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" I sometimes suspect that we're seeing something in the Internet as significant as the birth of cities. It's really something new, it's a new kind of civilization."
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![]() Early reference to a robot bird; see the other science fiction references below for modern-day robotic birds.
Consider, however, the Hans Christian Andersen tale The Nightingale (1843). A real nightingale charms a Chinese emperor and his peasants alike. Its song brings tears to their eyes. Subsequently, an artificial nightingale appears, even handsomer than the real one because it is ornamented with precious stones. It appears to sing as well and more repeatedly, and is as well received as the original. Banished, the real bird flies away. After a year, however, the artificial nightingale begins to break down, and cannot be fully repaired. A few years later, the emperor lays dying, and only the nightingale's song can save him. But the artificial bird has now completely wound down. Suddenly, the live nightingale appears, sings to the emperor, and he comes back to life.
Compare to the artificial bird from The Artificial Bird (1929) by Karel Capek, the robot bird from Invader on My Back, by Philip E. High, published by Ace Books in 1968, the tracer birds from Roger Zelazny's Changeling (1980) and little bird from Darwin's Children (2003) by Greg Bear. Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Science Fiction
Timeline
Tiny Flying Robot Weighs Just One Gram
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
Some Ringworld Configurations Are Stable
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
TRANSFORM Dynamic Furniture Concept Becomes What You Need
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
SnapBot Robots - You Choose Their Legs And They Choose Their Gaits
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
Dino From Magical Toys An AI Companion To Children
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
Humanoid Robots Building Humanoid Robots
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?''
What's The Best Way To Ship And Unpack Humanoid Robots?
'I opened the oblong box, where lay the automatons side by side...'
DNA Printed Book By Isaac Asimov Now Available
'They tied the memory to the bloodline and that was their record!'
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