In July 2001, a young Australian writer of fiction was asked to help envision the next generation of intelligent reasoning systems. She was an unlikely candidate. At the age of 27, she was preoccupied with storytelling, testing her acting abilities in semi-professional theatre and toying with plots for a science fiction novel. In search of ideas for future inventions, she attended a conference ...

The idea of connecting the human brain to a computer or machine directly is not novel and its potential has been explored in science fiction. With the rapid advances in the areas of information technology, miniaturization and neurosciences there has been a surge of interest in turning fiction into reality. In this paper the authors review the current state-of-the-art of brain-computer and brain...

We are entangled in a tightly woven social fabric of which many of the intersections and communication processes are hidden. The social structures made visible are those of governments, corporations and institutions. Other social structures that have no representation are trivialized as fiction or on a day-to-day-level, as gossip. Gossip is the most effective and compelling way of weaving the s...

E characteristically forthright terms. Robyn McCallum articulates her intention in writing Ideologiesofldentity 'nAdolescent Fiction: to 'examine the representation of dialogic conceptions of subjectivity in adolescent and children's fiction using a Bakhtinian approach to subjectivity • language and narrative' (p. 3). The measure of McCallum's success lies in the important insights which she pr...

This science-fiction prototype comprises two stories discussing potential futures of human hearing. The stories focus on the potential consequences of two speculative factors affecting human behaviour and societies: 1) sound conditioning technology, and 2) the mass hearing impairment. The stories will also be presented in a gallery space by means of the communicating arts: a prototype, moving i...

The undergraduate computer science curriculum is generally focused on skills and tools; most students are not exposed to much research in the field, and do not learn how to navigate the research literature. We describe how science fiction reviews were used as a gateway to research reviews. Students learn a little about current or recent research on a topic that stirs their imagination, and lear...

Science Fiction Prototyping (SFP) is a powerful tool to imagine, explore, and exploit future technologies, science, and environments and it can be a valuable asset for education, multimedia, and research. This article explores SFP in interactive, flexible, immersive, and collaborative settings, which introduced as Interactive Science Fiction Prototyping (ISFP) and allows new forms of experienci...

This article will argue that the situation for female mathematicians in fiction has improved, but that there is still cause for concern. You may wonder why you should care about this at all since these fictional women are (by definition) not real and therefore unlikely to be dues paying members of the AWM! With this in mind, in addition to providing examples of female mathematicians in literatu...