That's something that tends to happen with new technologies generally: The most interesting applications turn up on a battlefield, or in a gallery.
William GibsonHis eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine glass spines.
William GibsonSomewhere, deep within her, surfaces a tiny clockwork submarine. There are times when you can only take the next step. And then another.
William GibsonI don't think we know yet what broadcast television did to us, although it obviously did lots. I don't think we're far enough away from it yet to really get a handle on it. We get these things, I think they start changing us right away, we don't notice we're changing. Our perception of the whole thing shifts, and then we're in the new way of doing things, and we take it for granted.
William GibsonAs a writer of fiction who deals with technology, I necessarily deal with the history of technology and the history of technologically induced social change. I roam up and down it in a kind of special way because I roam down it into history, which is invariably itself a speculative affair.
William Gibson