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"Modern science fiction is the only form of literature that consistently considers the nature of the changes that face us, the possible consequences, and the possible solutions."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Raytron Apparatus | ||
| A device for aerial surveillance; the image was transmitted back to the user. |
As far as I know, the first instance of aerial military surveillance resulting in improved firing accuracy of distant weapons occured on September 24, 1861. A military balloon ascended to more than 1,000 feet near Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC, and began telegraphing intelligence on the Confederate troops located at Falls Church, Virginia, three miles away. Union guns were thus aimed and fired accurately at the Confederate troops without actually being able to see them.
But there must be a better way.
| Then Sonya prepared an image-finder. She connected the batteries, the projector, and the grid of glowing wires.
Alice and Dolores held the grid between them. Sonya fired the small projectile. It sailed off, a whirling pink ball. It was in reality a small, flat disk with a lenslike eye and a whirling, pink, glowing armature on top. Over a radius of several miles Sonya's raytron apparatus could direct its flight, and back over the invisible connecting ray came an image of all that the lens eye saw. The pink ball of light sailed ahead and soon was lost to view. The gird of wires which Alice and Dolores held glowed pink... Upon it, etched in black, was a moving scene: mountains, crags, valleys, moving in slow panorama, valleys all pale and empty in the starlight. Alice cried, "Sonya... lights! We see them now!" Sonya's apparatus marked the position of the pink ball. |
| Technovelgy from Beyond the Stars,
by Ray Cummings. Published by Ace in 1928 Additional resources -
|
Even more interesting, it appears that the device also allowed the user to pinpoint the position on the grid, as well as showing the surveillance video.
Compare to the scarab robot flying insect from The Scarab (1936) by Raymond Z. Gallun ,the artificial eye drone from Glimpse (1938) by Manly Wade Wellman, eyes from This Moment of the Storm (1966) by Roger Zelazny, the Ultraminiature Spy-Circuit from The Unknown (1972) by Christopher Anvil, copseyes from Cloak of Anarchy (1972) by Larry Niven, the sky ball from A Day For Damnation (1985) by David Gerrold, the drone floater camera from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton, the aerostat monitor from The Diamond Age (1995) by Neal Stephenson, the loiter drone from The Algebraist (2004) by Iain Banks and the bee cam from City of Pearl (2004) by Karen Traviss.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Beyond the Stars
More Ideas
and Technology by Ray Cummings
Tech news articles related to Beyond the Stars
Tech news articles related to works by Ray Cummings
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- iPhone UAV Drone Control App
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- Parrot Bebop Drone Pairs With Your Smartphone
- First Person Video Flying Parrot Bebop Drone Video
- DARPA Video Highlights Fast Lightweight Autonomy Drones
| India Ponders Always-On Smartphone Location Tracking |
| LingYuan Vehicle Roof Drones Now Available, ala Blade Runner 2049 |
| Chameleon Personalized Privacy Protection Mask |
| Spherical Police Robot Rolls In China |
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'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
