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Spray-On Computers
Jack William Bell writes "Edinburgh University has funding for a program to create spray on computers. The basic idea is to make thousands of tiny 'silicon specks' or 'smart sand' (a step larger than smart dust) which work together via wireless networking to provide 'ubiquitous computing.' No, the idea itself isn't new. But it is interesting to see someone actually working on it. The initial application is a spray you apply to the chest of heart patients, creating a sensor array to report their health back to the hospital."
Sometimes I wonder if this effect i planned by the IT industry. With quantum and DNA computing on the way, we will see in a few decades computers which are extremely powerful but also also extremely cheap. Obiviously the profit margins of the industry will drop below vaccuum energy levels. Therefore they have to find a way to make people more and more computers besides the incredible power of a single machine. The easiest way to do this is the make computers more powerful but less efficient.
I would even conjecture that this idea is behind the introduction of XML, web services and grid computing. Normal computer operations are overlayed with bloated protocols and documents to decrease to efficiency of modern servers and workstations forcing people into new upgrade cycles.
Ever wondered by why XML is not binary based ? Computers don't care if humans can read their data. Or why bloated XML is used for web services where simple binary based RPC would do the same job ? Or ever the perversion of putting it on top of HTTP, introducing new security holes by making trditional firewalls useless ?
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
do these devices have enough compute horsepower to handle encryption? do you really want your heart status to be "broadcast out"? can they autonegotiate proper encryption for correct data exchange? all these smart dust, smart pebbles, etc. plans (especially those intended for military purposes) - it looks like major security needs to be built in, but at least so far the track record has been pretty bad (WEP).
I am afraid this is just another grant hunt. There is no battery that would be suitable for this project.
Ever wondered by why XML is not binary based ? Computers don't care if humans can read their data.
Oh, but humans do. If you're developing such systems it's many times easier to debug human-readable text instead of binary stuff. You can also see what's going on more easily. See below.
Or why bloated XML is used for web services where simple binary based RPC would do the same job ?
Because being plain text allows for easier access, modification and searching by humans AND computers. No more locking in to proprietary binary formats. Would you like each manufacturer to have their own binary RPC protocol, all of them being incompatible with all others?
Or ever the perversion of putting it on top of HTTP, introducing new security holes by making trditional firewalls useless ?
It needs to have something as bearer, so why not use something tried and tested. What would you have suggested? A completely new protocol? What a waste of time and resources. Besides, a firewall alone does not quarantee your safety. It's not like if you allow web traffic, suddenly everyone and their dog is able to r00t your box. You allow port 80 but you disable RPC stuff in the server and that's it.
Have I been trolled?
I haven't read most of the comments thus far posted, but I was wondering just how smart these little guys will be. For instance, how will they know who their peers are? i.e. you use them to monitor a patient's heart. but you have 3 cardiac patients in the same room. will each spray bottle have a "signature" on each little speck, or maybe specks in close proximity to each other will somehow learn that they are part of a larger group...? the latter seems like too much to expect from something that size.
The power of Christ compiles you.
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First of all, DNA computers will probably never be practical. Not because of the equipment involved, but because their is a hard limit on the amount of dna that can be involved in a single computation.
Also, you are correct that it is not feasable for a network to achieve linear time speed-up in the number of processors. Theta(n/log(n)) would be great, though, and sufficient for most applications.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
I'm sure a lot of the grant money is for working out how to encapsulate the sillicon chips with teflon or titanium (or other stuff like exotic carbon) in strategic arrangements so that their outsides are biocompatible and conductive in just the right places, so that one day Bones can wave some strange glowey thing over you, say "Well, i'm just a simple country doctor," and bring you back from the dead.
On the other hand poisonous smart sand would make a fantastic weapon. Make it be able to hop or crawl by giving it little piezoelectric actuators and you could make an ordinary looking patch of sand suddenly come to life when activated by an enemy soldier's touch, swarming over his body and forcing itself under his gas mask seals and into his eyes, nose, ears and mouth. And then it could hide out in the body, waiting for the next victim.
lastly, a listening device the size of a grain of sand could be put into your bedroom and you'd never find it. (hands up who regularly even vaccuumes their room? I always forget. I don't even know how to spell the verb properly.) They say that the goal is to computerise objects by simply spraying smart sand onto it: What if somebody decided to (without your knowledge) computerise your pillow stuffing? Do you know how many Americans pray out their deepest darkest secrets on their knees by their bedsides each night?
If these walls could talk...
I actually picked up Michael Crichton's Prey while I was in Edinburgh last weekend. It follows a similar kind of technology. Pretty cool, and quite a tie-in for me personally!
...for spray-on deodorant. Or how about car paint that changes color according to your whim?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Checking the archives here at good 'ol slashdot, I found this. The power of chee--- uh, blood. One would suppose that this would be a good sourse of power (at least for the medical applications).
Let the toner wars begin! (N.Stevenson reference)
I'm not sure if you're joking or not, so I'll answer seriously: The whole idea of nanotech is to be small and cheap. A lot of useful research can be done with $2 million (equivalent) if you're not wasting money on a marketing dept., executive salaries, and all the other corporate bullshit. The academic research environment has shown time and time again that it gets more done dollar for dollar (pound for pound, euro for euro, whatever) than the corporate research environment, which is why most genuine science (as opposed to engineering) comes out of academic labs. In fact, it's a nice refutation of the "free market is always more efficient" mantra beloved of both "privatize everything" politicians and university administrators -- who are basically whores for the oxymoronic "business schools" and sports teams.
;)
[steps back, looks at post]
Wow, that was a bit of a rant, wasn't it? I didn't realize I had that much venom stored up on this subject.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I posted this a year or so ago.
I had a dream once. In this dream, you could get a PDA applied to the back of your hand. It was sort of applied on the surface. It would wear off after about a month.
Just think, PDA functionality for everyone, and you can't lose it.
Everyone wanted one. But you have to pay by the month, because the PDA would wear off. For people who couldn't afford the PDA, there was an alternative. Corporate sponsorship. You could get a free low-end PDA on your hand if you also agreed to let them apply a higher end color animated advertising banner to your forehead.
Especially among young people, which particular animated advertising banner you had on your forehead would become a status symbol. After all, only so many Brand-X sponsorships were available in a certian period of time. So it would have more sex appeal to have, say, an ad for a leading soft drink, than to have, say, an ad for an auto tire repair shop.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Remember when those perfume ladies would hunt down unsuspecting victims and spray them with the scent du jour? Well, I can see a surge of this practice in the future, but will the spray contain just a scent? Or will it be a computerized leech?
Anyone ever play the game "Total Annihilation?"
If we can find a power source for each component, what's the likelihood of designing spray-on computers that can ultimately reform themselves into a larger, more workable design?
One previous poster made mention the possibility of making them move (I forget the method they suggested), and they are going to have communicative abilities, so it seems reasonable to assume that with a schematic in a main computer somewhere, and a capable enough transmitter, the "spray-on computer" can essentially form up to make a REAL computer!
The Penguin Producer