Eric Horvitz illustrates the potential dilemmas of living with robots by telling the story of how he once got stuck in an elevator at Stanford Hospital with a droid the size of a washing machine. "I remembered thinking, `Whoa, this is scary,' as it whirled around, almost ...

LECHEROUS LIMERICKS (1975) by Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov's ambition was to have a book in every one of the major Dewey Decimal categories. This one fits in the category labelled 'dirty poems'. It's a collection of 100 original limericks dealing with what Asimov called 'actions and words concerning which society pretends nonexistence -- reproduction, excretion, and so on'. They ...

Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy is to be adapted for the big screen. The sci-fi novels depict a society that has found a way to predict the future and a foundation set up for scientific research to ensure its survival. The ousted founders of studio New Line Cinema, Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne, are behind the adaptation, which they will ...