July 17, 2006 Books » Book Buzz

Does Philip K. Dick’s Brain Dream of Barbecue Sauce? 

by John Branston
philipdickrobotpic.jpg

Sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick may have died over 20 years ago, but — in a twist that seems ripped from the plot of one of his novels — a robot version of him is still kicking. Well, its brain is still alive. And it calls Memphis home.

As reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in advance of the new film adaptation of Dick’s work A Scanner Darkly (read Chris Herrington’s review here), a Dallas-based robotics company worked in conjunction with scholars from University of Texas at Arlington and Memphis’ FedEx Institute of Technology’s Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis to create a life-sized android of the author for promotional purposes.

After the robot’s body was lost in transit from Las Vegas to San Francisco in December 2005, only the brain of the robot remains: In Memphis on the laptop of the FedEx Institute’s Andrew Olney.

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Cover Story: Pit Stops

By Hannah Sayle, Chris Herrington, Chris Shaw, Louis Goggans, Greg Akers, Bruce VanWyngarden, Jackson Baker and John Branston

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