Back in 2021, the New York Police Department (NYPD) cancelled a planned deployment of the Spot robot dog [aka "Digidog"] following a public backlash. Now, New York City's current law and order mayor Eric Adams has brought the robot dog back for use in "hazardous situations," The New York Times has reported. "Digidog is out of the pound," Adams said at a press conference yesterday in Times Square.The NYPD will acquire two of the robots for $750,000 and only use them in hostage and other critical situations. "I believe that technology is here; we cannot be afraid of it,” Adams said. “A few loud people were opposed to it, and we took a step back [but] that is not how I operate. I operate on looking at what’s best for the city."Spot/Digidog is built by Hyundai's Boston Dynamics, and is designed to be used in dangerous situations like security and inspections. It was also tested for use in combat by the French army, primarily for reconnaissance.During its previous tour of duty with the NYPD, police used Spot to gather information about a gunmen barricaded inside a building. On another occasion it was deployed during a home invasion, also to give officers eyes inside the house. After critics brought up potential concerns over surveillance and privacy, however, then-mayor Bill de Blasio elected to cancel a $94,000 lease on Spot. "It’s creepy, alienating and sends the wrong message to New Yorkers," a city spokesperson said at the time. Along with Digidog, the NYPD announced... Continue reading at 'Engadget'
[ Engadget | 2023-04-12 06:19:27 UTC ]
Del Rey, the SFF imprint of Cornerstone, has acquired A E Warren's four-book high-concept science fiction series, described as "Jurassic Park meets Sapiens, set within a bold new imaginative world". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-12-21 17:20:07 UTC ]
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From talking tigers to automaton dragons and UFOs, find some of the best 2020 under the radar SFF books you may have missed, including Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-12-21 11:37:00 UTC ]
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Need a new novel? Classic adventures, satire, and dystopian science fiction top this year's round-up of reader book recommendations for fiction. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-12-18 22:08:27 UTC ]
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Need a new novel? Classic adventures, satire, and dystopian science fiction top this year's round-up of reader book recommendations for fiction. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-12-18 22:08:27 UTC ]
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Need a new novel? Classic adventures, satire, and dystopian science fiction top this year's round-up of reader book recommendations for fiction. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-12-18 22:08:27 UTC ]
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As editor of the magazines Analog and Omni, he was a champion of a new generation of authors, including George R.R. Martin. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-12-14 19:27:29 UTC ]
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Anthologies like “The Big Book of Modern Fantasy” cover a lot of ground. Illustrated books like “Flyway” offer something special. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-12-07 14:00:00 UTC ]
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THE SKELETONS IN Ray Bradbury’s closet are out in Killer, Come Back to Me, a career-spanning collection of the science fictioneer’s crime stories. These 300 pages present a new side to readers who only know Bradbury from such classics as The Martian Chronicles (1950) and Fahrenheit 451 (1953).... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-11-24 13:30:59 UTC ]
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FASCISTS LOVE Dune: Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptation was highly anticipated on white nationalist sites such as Counter-Currents and the Daily Stormer. As soon as the trailer dropped, they began poring over it for signs of deviation from their pet interpretations of Frank Herbert’s 1965 science... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-11-19 18:00:46 UTC ]
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Dystopias, adventures and new worlds in books by Stephen Graham Jones, Zen Cho and more. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-19 13:30:00 UTC ]
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“Wild landscapes, weird nature, science fiction — this really should be my jam. But no.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-11-19 10:00:06 UTC ]
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The BBC Radiophonic Workshop made the famous science fiction theme tune and worked with the Beatles. Now it is preparing to make historyThe Radiophonic Workshop has always broken new sonic ground, from the Doctor Who theme to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Now they’re at it again – this... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-11-15 10:00:31 UTC ]
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Drawing on Octavia E. Butler's journals and notes, "A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky" offers a glimpse inside her journey to becoming a science fiction writer. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-11-11 15:30:06 UTC ]
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Authors Kim Stanley Robinson and Malka Older discuss how storytelling can help us govern for the future. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2020-11-11 14:15:00 UTC ]
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Although Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) – known as ‘Jack’ to his friends and family – is best-known for his seven children’s fantasy novels set in the land of Narnia, C. S. Lewis wrote a number of other works – fiction and non-fiction, science fiction and literary criticism – which have […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2020-10-29 15:00:09 UTC ]
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These mathematical science fiction books use mathematics in world-building to advance the plot and build characters. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-10-28 10:37:00 UTC ]
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TAMSYN MUIR’S DEBUT NOVEL, Gideon the Ninth, the first in her Locked Tomb trilogy, exploded into the world to universal critical acclaim last year. The series doesn’t fit nearly into the castles-versus-spaceships division that characterizes much of mainstream science fiction and fantasy. It has... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-10-21 17:00:28 UTC ]
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If you thought the landscape of classic SFF was exclusively male, peep these science fiction and fantasy stories by women, including Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements edited by Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-10-14 10:37:00 UTC ]
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Recent releases include “The Midnight Bargain,” “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” and “Piranesi.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-10-14 09:00:04 UTC ]
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Mainstream economics is suffering an identity crisis, which began with The Great Recession and has reemerged during the current pandemic. In response, a growing collection of voices has advocated looking beyond the field—in particular, to science fiction—as a way to imagine it anew. Although... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-05 08:48:01 UTC ]
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