How Should SF Magazines Fight Off Extinction?

via io9.com

If you're going to put someone's name on the cover, why should it be some obscure SF writer's name? Like anybody's going to know or care who Harlan Asimov is?

It's a shame he won't live. But then again, who does?

After two years, the Dickbot is still at large...

Sydney Morning Herald | Robot goes missing
Philip K Dick is missing.

Not the American science fiction writer whose novels spawned hit films such as Blade Runner and Total Recall -- he died more than 20 years ago -- but a state-of-the-art robot named after the author.

The quirky android, was lost in early January [2006] while en route to California by commercial airliner.

...The irony of the situation -- a missing replica of the very author who championed "replicant" freedom -- is not lost on Phil's creators.

...Along with an eerie likeness to the author, the robot features award-winning artificial intelligence that mimics the writer's mannerisms and lifelike skin material to affect realistic expressions.

Top-of-the-line voice software loaded with data from Dick's vast body of writing allows the robot to carry on natural-sounding conversations, although it does come off as a bit doddering at times.

Biometric-identification software and advanced machine vision allows the robot to recognise people -- even in a crowd -- read their expressions and body language and talk to them sounding a lot like a normal, albeit slightly senile, author who likes to quote his own books when he gets confused.

That pretty much makes him indistinguishable from every author I've ever met.