All posts by Paul Raven

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Mind over matter – the future of remote control

Cyborg headControlling mechanical and electronic devices with nothing but the power of your own thoughts is a science fiction trope almost as old as the genre itself, and like many other tropes it’s edging towards plausibility at quite a speed. [image by mize2oo5]

Futurismic has mentioned brain–computer interfaces a few times before, and the essential framework of the technology is fairly well established. However, the high costs involved mean that beyond research and rehabilitation there aren’t many truly practical applications right now.

But that’s not stopping the researchers thinking big, as in this Popular Mechanics article:

“… the research is showing that the brain can act independently of the body. One day, you could be sitting in an office and controlling a device from across the room—or in another building. And it’s not just flicking a switch. It could be a nanotool that’s moving through a tiny environment, and you can control it and see what it’s seeing.”

So, great news for the prospect of telecommuting – almost all manufacturing jobs could be done from the comfort of your armchair, for example. The flipside being, of course, that it would make offshore outsourcing an even more viable option than it is now. [story via SlashDot]

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Japanese teen smokers hack age verification with bank-notes

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Tokyo vending machinesEverything can and will be hacked; once you have the motivation sussed, the exploits will be close behind.

Point in case: Japanese cigarette vending machines have age-verification cameras fitted to them to prevent teens from illegally purchasing tobacco. A great idea, and a typically Japanese high-tech fix for a social problem, right? [image by midorisyu]

Well, it might have been – if the kids hadn’t sussed out that the cameras can be fooled by not just pictures from magazines but the portraits of historical figures on bank-notes. Back to the drawing board – I wouldn’t want to be on the R&D team of the company that makes those vending machines right now.

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Looking on the bright side – ten reasons to like higher gas prices

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Second Life cyber-blimpI don’t know first-hand, as I don’t drive, but it doesn’t take superhuman empathy to imagine how hard the spiralling cost of diesel and petroleum is hitting a lot of people right now.

Time Magazine obviously came to the same conclusion, and decided to make an attempt at cheering everyone up by listing 10 things you can like about $4 gas. These range from the prospect of globalized jobs returning to their original locations to the more prosaic and obvious like less pollution and fewer traffic deaths.

If those aren’t enough for you, perhaps a piece at the New York Times will sell you on the idea. I mean, come on – who here doesn’t think an air-ship renaissance would be extremely awesome? [via BoingBoing; image by Torley Linden]

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Friday Free Fiction for 4th July

Happy Independence Day, America! With that long weekend ahead of you, you’ll be needing some fiction to while away the spare hours, right?

OK, so maybe not – it’ll keep until you’re all partied out, anyway. Everyone else – get stuck in!

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We’ll start off sedately with ManyBooks.net:

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Feedbooks continues to demonstrate the productivity power of crowdsourcing. I don’t know if they can keep up this pace forever, but there’s another random sackful of stories old and new:

And a big wodge of Richard Kadrey‘s stuff:

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Another chunk of Shadow Unit‘s “summertime DVD extras” have appeared – read the whole of “Vigil” so far.

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It’s new ‘zine season at Subterranean Press:

“Oddly (and delightfully) enough, we’ve chosen to kick off the special Mike Resnick issue of Subterranean Online with a brand new story by Jay Lake, as well as an insightful interview with same. His new novel, Escapement, has just hit the stands. “Chain of Fools” shares that novel’s setting, though it doesn’t depend on the novel to be enjoyed fully.

Next week, look for us to start serializing Mike Resnick’s classic novella, “Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge.”

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There’s a new issue (#22) of Clarkesworld also:

There’s non-fiction, too:

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Not to mention issue 3 of Oddlands Magazine:

Plus poetry and a review.

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[links expunged]

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And another – Jake Freivald sez:

The latest issue of Flash Fiction Online is up!

Cheers, Jake!

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Via BoingBoing:

To celebrate the release of Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams, Night Shade Books has posted a self-contained excerpt from the book [and] the complete text of Williams’s Nebula Award-winning novella “The Green Leopard Plague” to their downloads page. They’ve also got a short interview with him here.

Implied Spaces comes highly recommended by a number of people, arguably the least influential of whom is myself – check out my review of the book, if you like.

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A seventeenth slice of Memory from Jayme Lynn Blaschke:

Flavius’ footsteps echoed eerily in the deathly silence of the hall. Barely a dozen liveried staff milled in confusion along the perimeter of the oblong chamber, with a like number of guards spaced at even intervals, cuayabs held unobtrusively. The balcony boxes, halfway up the vaulted ceiling, remained empty.

At the far end of the audience hall, seated upon ornate thrones on a raised marble dias polished so brightly it hurt the eyes to look at, were the Tricentennial Emperor and Empress.

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Gareth L Powell‘s been too busy to write anything for us this week, but he has by way of compensation, offered us the chance to download an excerpt from his forthcoming short story collection, The Last Reef.

Indeed, it looks like most of the Friday Flash Fictioneers are taking a sabbatical this week, but the die-hards are still on the case:

  • Phred Serenissima is hanging with “Van and Marla“
  • Neil Beynon‘s on the “Blink“

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And there’s your weekly dose of free fiction – I hope there’s something in there to keep your literary stomach from churning. Don’t forget to send us your tips and plugs for next week – deadline is 1800 GMT Friday afternoon. Have a great weekend!