I was particularly touched by the news of a mountaineer who had died on Everest, slowly freezing to death in his tent and knowing he wouldn’t make it through the night. He talked with his wife on the sat phone as he died, having the technology to say goodbye.
My friend Dr. Harry Kloor has been involved with the XPRIZE since its inception, and he was particularly enthusiastic about the new “Avatar” XPRIZE. Avatar technology is exciting and filled with possibilities, in which a human can link with a separate robotic body via telepresence and use that separate body for myriad purposes, whether a remote surgeon using a medical avatar to perform an operation on the other side of the world, or a tourist visiting hazardous and exotic places in a robot body, or an invalid doing daily activities but in a surrogate robot body. Harry was so enthusiastic about the possibilities of avatars that he asked me and Mike Resnick to edit an anthology of science fiction stories showcasing the sorts of things avatars can do. This story pulls together several examples of how amazing avatars can be, and how they can help us be more human at the same time.