Slashdot Mirror
Robot Composed of "Catoms" Can Assume Any Form
philetus writes "An article in New Scientist describes a robotic system composed of swarms of electromagnetic modules capable of assuming almost any form that is being developed by the Claytronics Group at Carnegie Mellon. 'The grand goal is to create swarms of microscopic robots capable of morphing into virtually any form by clinging together. Seth Goldstein, who leads the research project at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, in the US, admits this is still a distant prospect. However, his team is using simulations to develop control strategies for futuristic shape-shifting, or "claytronic", robots, which they are testing on small groups of more primitive, pocket-sized machines.'"
it's about time someone had that point straight- milkyway replicators != Pegasus replicators! the first set basically destroyed the civilization that created reese who created the original replicators as "toys". the pegasus replicators however were created by the ancients to fight the wraith, later the ancients destroyed most but not all of their creation leaving the last surviving replicators to rebuild their "civilization" modeled after the ancients themselves with the exception being that they couldn't modify their own code [damned proprietary software!] and had a "nasty temper" rivaling that of the wraith. here's a more in depth explaination:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_(Stargate)
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I do feel compelled to note that every time something like this is developed in a movie or TV show, it ends up nearly killing everyone within the scope of the show. Stargate. Star Trek. Terminators 2 & 3. Hell, even Dr. Who had to stop them in the first season of the new series.
Whenever the self-directed technological apocalypse comes, be it army of soldier bots, self-aware ICBM control systems, nanocancer, servant droid rebellion, a world banking AI (that one is mine), or whatever, there's one thing we will not be able to say
and that is "we didn't see this coming."
Sci-fi has been predicting this for seventy years, and I'm starting to really believe that it might be on the list with satellites and lasers of stuff that's actually going to happen in our lifetimes.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!