Oh, and let's not forget to honor Rostand, Verne and Wells, heroes all!

Ah, Max Headroom, my favorite! Give the Republicans another couple of years and we'll be in his world. We already have the technology.

Heck, Richard Engel's live report from the Kuwaiti/Iraqi border last evening was to constitute the official Pentagon announcement of the "end of combat operations" (again!). Talk about blurring lines.

Speaking of Eric Blair (again!), this morning we watched a bull hop the wall of a Spanish ring and gore and trample many spectators but a couple of weeks back Catalonia ruled the sport illegal. Homage to Catalonia!

Most of this TV is clamoring with earnest competing voices, but within a narrow accepted range, giving the surface appearance of openness, when in fact prevailing framings of the world are being reinforced --not challenged. It's more subtle than 1984, Huxley was even more cogent than Orwell at discerning what was coming.

On topic, I know science and enjoy science fiction, and it's to be expected there'd be an interplay between sci-fi and advancing sci/tech.

One work of science fiction I'm sorry was not mentioned here -- "1984" -- which depicted a world where news (among other things) was delivered by TVs, which were everywhere and could not be turned off.

Most restaurants now have TVs that can never be turned off.

As does your doctor's office very likely.

Even most Post Offices.

It is a nightmare.

The show said 'futurists couldn't have conceived of the transistor in the early part of the last century because there was no science to support such a speculation'.

Do you mean 19th C.... In the early 20th C. rectifiers existed, semiconductor materials were speculated, and in 1925 the first patent for a transistor was filed... they just didn't have the manufacturing technology to dope the materials and manufacturer at the small scale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor

As a talk show host coach, I am always looking at where to steer my clients. Maybe this is it. Remember the scene in Men In Black, where they get the real scoop from the Enquirer? Well maybe this is the same thing.

Check out Fred Pohl's Age of the Pussyfoot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_the_Pussyfoot
Written in the early 60's, might not be his best book but he clearly predicts where mobile devices will be in another five or ten years.

Great story. Regarding the implantable devices, you should read John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" in which soldiers receive 'brainpals' which give them instant access to all human knowledge. It speaks directly to what you were reporting on and is just one of the best books I've ever read.