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."

Comments

I doubt that this ubiquious stuff will ever work.

[Krapangor]

While in theory it all seems fun and games, th researchers usually overlook the major problem: communication. The amount of necessary communication to coordinate the data exchange between the sensors increases non-linearily with the number of autonomous systems. Thus the more systems we have the less efficient it will become. So "smart dust" is the fastest way to produce a minimum efficiency with a maximum of computers.

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 ?

do they care about security?

[ReallyQuietGuy]

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).

They only forgot one thing - power

[tftp]

"In a cubic millimetre, you can have a sensor for heat, pressure, light and so on, but also a computer and wireless technology."

I am afraid this is just another grant hunt. There is no battery that would be suitable for this project.

Re:They only forgot one thing - power

[SilverSun]

A friend of mine is working in a bio/med-tech company. They develop energy sources for cardiac pacemakers which feed on the sugar in your blood. They can in principle also produce energy from body-fat. The device is not particularly smal, thou. a little more than a square inch, and ... errr.. it's not yet working.
Then again, the RFID tags in the supermarket don't even need any direct power source.

Cheers.

Answers to your questions

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:I doubt that this ubiquious stuff will ever wor

[kramer2718]

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.

bone's medicalkit

[nounderscores]

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...

Re:Obligatory rain on parade

[Daniel Dvorkin]

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. ;)