I have decidedly mixed feelings about this. Like any tool, it could be either good or evil depending on who wields it, but the amount of power it provides greatly amplifies both possible outcomes — and in another five or ten years, it will probably be available to anyone who’s willing to spend the money. [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Science Fiction and Fantasy category.
“iPhone doc will detect cancer, diabetes – boffins”
I never thought that I’d live to see a working Star Trek-esque medical tricorder, but it seems that I might… at least a poor-man’s version of one, that requires placing a sample on or in the device. Even better, the smartphones we’re toting around today might already have all the hardware needed, if I’m reading [...]
“Star Trek tractor beam to save Earth from asteroid Armageddon”
No, there’s no real Star Trek-style tractor beam (yet, anyway). What they’re discussing is parking a large spacecraft near such an asteroid and using its gravity to drag the asteroid onto a course that would miss the Earth. That assumes that we detect the threat early enough to launch such a craft, get it into [...]
“Authentication by ‘Cognitive Footprint’”
This entry could almost have come from Geek Drivel: [...] I remember reading a science fiction story about a computer worm that searched for people this way: going from computer to computer, trying to identify a specific individual. I immediately thought of The Adolescence of P-1, one of my teenage favorites, and I was tickled [...]
“Ten 100-year predictions that came true”
Considering the poor accuracy of professional science fiction authors even in “near-future” SF, this guy‘s track record is nothing short of amazing. Too bad he can’t be around to enjoy his success, but when you’re making predictions for a century hence, that’s a bit problematic.
“Fast food firm fields Sith sandwich”
I’m a hard-core geek, but even I am just shaking my head in bafflement.
“Locating Change: Science and Technology Controversies”
From this article: [...] This is why one of the great contributions of science fiction is its ability to create monsters and technologies from the ether. When they show up out of nowhere, they challenge us to think more broadly and to make new connections. [...] That’s one of the things — maybe the main thing [...]
“Official: File-sharing is a religion… in Sweden”
This sounds like something directly out of science fiction, to me.
“Darth Vader dies peacefully in hospital”
The character of Darth Vader, in the original Star Wars trilogy, has long been known to be a fusion of two people: bodybuilder David Prowse for (of course) the body, and the now-iconic James Earl Jones for the voice. But apparently there was a secret third component to this armored villain: sword-master and Hollywood fencing [...]
“H&M Under Fire for Using Fake, Computer-Generated Models”
That’s not data models, it’s women who model clothing. There was a near-future SF novel I read many years ago (I don’t recall which one) that posited that actors would be replaced almost entirely by computer-generated models. We’re already seeing the precursors of it — all the Pixar releases, for instance. And characters in games [...]