Science Fiction

'View' co-host Joy Behar didn't hold back when commenting on President Trump's heavy criticism of freshmen Democratic congresswomen, Reps. Behar said Trump is'running very scared right now,' and that'he is like a cornered rat.' Her comments came as Trump stood by his original criticism of the group known as'The Squad.' "View" co-host Joy Behar invoked George Orwell's iconic novel "1984" while discussing the Trump presidency with author Stephen King. While promoting his new novel, "The Institute," on Wednesday, King began by explaining the plot, which involves "defenseless children" with supernatural abilities who are "locked up" by a mysterious organization. He talked about how his story connects to current events. "When I started writing this book, I just wanted to write a story about defenseless children who were locked up and had to kind of band together in order to fight these cruel adults that are performing tests on them," King said.

Here's a science fiction premise you've probably heard before: a person encounters a shadowy company that sells hyper-realistic virtual experiences. They're put into an incredibly vivid simulated reality through some kind of brainwave helmet or injected drug. Then something goes wrong and the protagonist discovers -- say it with me now -- that the experience isn't virtual at all. The new film Empathy, Inc. is nominally one of these stories. Written by author Mark Leidner and directed by Yedidya Gorsetman, the film premiered at the Cinepocalypse festival in 2018, and it's getting a wider theatrical release this week.

Royal Caribbean International will deliver tens of thousands of meals and other supplies to Bahamas residents affected by Hurricane Dorian, CEO Richard Fain told Fox News Wednesday. The Miami-based vacation giant is used to dealing with tropical systems, but the devastation left by Dorian in the northern Bahamas is breathtaking, Fain told Neil Cavuto on "Your World." "It's hard to appreciate -- those of us in Miami are used to seeing hurricanes. We get them for a few hours," he said. "But on Grand Bahama, that storm just sat over them without moving for 38 hours."

IN his short pamphlet of twenty-four pages, the writer treats of a matter observed by all who read the newspapers--we mean the fact that crimes, particularly those of a graver description, generally occur in epidemics. To prove this point, Dr. Despine, in the first division of his paper, records a large number of murders, suicides, robberies, etc.; on these it is not necessary to dwell, but we shall pass on to his second division--the law which regulates Moral Contagion. Moral contagion, being a natural phenomenon, is consequently one of the laws to which God has subjected all created things. We succeed in the discovery of this law by analyzing moral facts and by studying the circumstances in which they occur, in the same manner as we succeed in discovering the laws which preside over the phenomena of the physical and organic worlds, by studying perseveringly the facts appertaining thereto as well as the conditions in which they are produced. Now, the conclusion to be drawn from the facts which we have related is forcibly this, which will represent the law that has directed the commission of these acts: Every manifestation of the instincts of the mind, of the sentiments and passions of every kind, excites similar sentiments and passions in individuals who are capable of feeling them in a certain intensity.

"Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull." That's from George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984, published in 1949. The comment is meant to highlight what a repressive surveillance state the characters live in, but looked at another way, it shows how lucky they are: At least their brains are still private. Over the past few weeks, Facebook and Elon Musk's Neuralink have announced that they're building tech to read your mind -- literally. Mark Zuckerberg's company is funding research on brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that can pick up thoughts directly from your neurons and translate them into words.

When it comes to teaching people a little something about humanity at large, the science fiction genre manages to enlighten our minds time and again. From Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" to Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," this type of literature offers an intimate commentary on both human nature and our modern world. Thanks to the works of these writers and the success of iconic films like the Star Wars, sci-fi has become apart of the mainstream. Because of that, it's now a genre regarded for its sweeping visions of where we're headed as a society. And Tal M. Klein's book, The Punch Escrow, a thrilling story about a future society where teleportation has run amok, is no exception The Punch Escrow tackles life in the 22nd century (2147 to be exact), where current problems such as pollution and diseases are managed by a plethora of technological advances.

The futurist Roy Amara is best remembered for an adage he coined, which became known as Amara's Law: "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." The intermodal shipping container is as good an example as any. The first international standard for containers was established in 1933, and they were aggressively promoted by Malcom McLean, in particular, starting in 1955. But containers didn't start to really revolutionize shipping until the 1970s and didn't play a pivotal role in helping create a truly globalized economy until even later. What I saw about artificial intelligence at a recent CloudExpo conference and other events helped confirm my belief that technologists and users are starting to put earlier overestimates behind them while settling in for the long haul.

Science Fiction writing in itself is an exercise of modeling the future based on present and past culture. Therefore, integrating predictive algorithms in literature works has been an intuitive choice. Isaac Asimov was a prolific 20th century American writer and professor. He wrote or edited more than 500 books and is one of the most popular SF writers of all time. The Foundation Series is one of his most notable and comprehensive works.

Explore the inventions, technology and ideas of science fiction writers at Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) - over 2,500 are available. Use the Timeline of Science Fiction Invention or the alphabetic Glossary of Science Fiction Technology to see them all, look for the category that interests you, or browse by favorite author / book.

What will we invent after we invent everything that can be invented? Artificial intelligence stands to be the most radically transformative technology ever developed by the human race. As a former artificial intelligence entrepreneur turned investor, I spend a lot of time thinking about the future of this technology: where it's taking us and how our lives are going to reform around it. We humans tend to develop emergent technologies to the nth degree, so I think there is a certain inevitability to the far-out techno-utopian visions from certain branches of science fiction -- it just makes common sense to me and many others. While we've come a long way in this particular field, the current situation resembles a camp of explorers perched at the base of a mountain -- the only way forward from here is up.