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Biotransistors
Quite a number of people have written in over the last day or so regarding the article in EE Times about the possibility of integrating bacteria into semiconductors. The hope would be to make biotransistors with "unique capabilites." The idea, itself, isn't a new one however and work has been going on in this area for a while. Like the quantum machine, a lot of the work in this area probably won't see practical fruition for quite some time.
It seems to me that if you are using bacteria in this manner expecting exact results time after time, you are going to get a big let down eventually. Lets say some other random bacteria gets into the case and attacks the bacteria in your chip. Or the culture fails to replicate the 942'th generation. Or it mutates and suddenly provides 2 free electrons instead of 1. There seems to me to be too many variables in this theoretical hardware to even warrant exploring it.
"Join me or die! Can you do any less?"
--Mr. Sparkle
Now instead of trying to hax0r into someone's computer and trying to 0wn them with 31337 skills, all you'd have to do is sneak into his room and smear Neosporin all over his PC :) Enter the new wave of 31337 hax0rs.
Emerson Willowick: Thinker, Writer, Human Being.
Brings a new meaning to that phrase. And I quote "Now we are turning a problem into a feature."
I don't see anything particularly new here. The article mentions using photosensitive bacteria to act as "biotransistors", and gets very excited about the fact that when light shines on a photosensitive bacterium, it yields up an electron that could be used to switch a primitive biotransistor. I don't see how this is really any different from a conventional semiconductor.
Also, the article mentions using these bacteria as optical amplifiers - nothing very exciting there either. Optical amplifiers have been around for quite a while now after all, in the form of Erbium Doped Fibre amps.
As long as the bacteria are still alive, they would require some sort of substanance. But before any thing if this sort would become truly feasible some sort of atuomatic feeding system would have to be developed. It could be possible that they recieve their food from the air, or from a feeding plate, etc. But I wouldn't want my computer to die just because I have a "black thumb."
Devil Ducky
Devil Ducky
MY peers would get out of jury duty.
Now we'll see more stupid processor names like Ebola and the Salmonella III.
So much for eating near my computer.
Hey, combine this with the previous article (bacteria can survive in orbit) and we could have computers seeding the cosmos! All those people who wanted to buy Seti@home coprocessors will be lining up to launch their boxes into the void, hoping to bring life to some distant planet...
- Michael Cohn
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Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
Will we have to worry about computer viruses?
This idea sounds all well and good, but we are talking about slavery here!
How can we allow poor, innocent bacteria to work our chips for us? What did they do to deserve it?
Remember, we have a responsibility to lover life forms. Don't buy these chips, they are evil.
On a different note, I wonder whether they are resistent to antibiotics. It would be great to destroy someone's hardware by giving it medicine.
These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined. -- Homer Simpson