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Nanomaterial May Allow Devices to Rewire Themselves
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers have developed a nanomaterial that can 'steer' electrical currents. The discovery could lead to the invention of devices that can reconfigure their internal wiring and evolve into an entirely different and new device, to reflect the changing needs of consumers. From the article: 'The team is aiming to create a single device able to reconfigure itself into a resistor, a rectifier, a diode and a transistor based on signals from a computer. The multi-dimensional circuitry could be reconfigured into new electronic circuits using a varied input sequence of electrical pulses, the team said. 'Our new steering technology allows use to direct current flow through a piece of continuous material,' said Professor Bartosz Grzybowski, who led the research. 'Like redirecting a river, streams of electrons can be steered in multiple directions through a block of the material; even multiple streams flowing in opposing directions at the same time.'"
That is all.
The discovery could lead to the invention of devices that can reconfigure their internal wiring and evolve into an entirely different and new device, to reflect the changing needs of *service providers*. ...
C'mon!
Moving on...
TFA was light on the technicals, but if they could get circuits to be able to rewire themselves, it would be interesting to see if it could be used for self-repairing devices.
One downside is that they are using "electrically conductive particles," which makes me wonder how sensitive these particles would be to external EM fields, or even a voltage spike.
T-1000 on the way?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Just think what you could do with a bunch of robots built like this and an "evolution" experiment!
Will it allow subject lines to correct themselves?
The discovery could lead to the invention of devices that can reconfigure their internal wiring and evolve into an entirely different and new device, to reflect the changing needs of consumers
No that's old old old stuff not an invention.
In the digital world, think of a classic digital computer. Decade(s) ago I've used (expensive telco) FPGA products which reconfigure themselves. Some of the exotic massively redundant switchgear could reconfigure itself on the fly while passing production customer traffic, although we usually did it during maintenance windows anyway. VLIW CPUs, etc. I've done embedded FPGA work where you embed a really simple CPU in the FPGA and build all the smarts into the FPGA as reconfigurable peripherals of the CPU itself, so you start with a minimal but usable "microblaze" (or was it picoblaze?) core and then add a hardware multiplier as necessary, etc. Very old stuff, not new...
In analog you've got the option of doing it "for real" with analog computer building blocks and lots of analog switches, or doing it "emulated" using DSP chips.
This approach is currently economically feasible, but rarely implemented. Mostly terror of being single sourced, or violating a patent. If I buy a USB interface that violates someones patent, I'm much more insulated than if I implement a FPGA / software USB interface that violates that patent. Maybe not legally, but definitely practically.
It might be new in that its yet another implementation, kind of like "yet another ia32 386 compatible CPU" can be new. It might be new in that its really freaking small or really energy efficient (although existing DSP chips, shipping in the millions, are going to crush your R+D possibly beating a theoretically better technology)
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Eh, Judgement Day maybe... But that could turn out to be our Salvation.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
... The parts inside are quite capable of servicing themselves. (And, soon, defending themselves.)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Totally turn my phone into a tricorder. I will determine the composition of everything.
'Our new steering technology allows use to direct current flow through a piece of continuous material,' said Professor Bartosz Grzybowski, who led the research. 'Like redirecting a river, streams of electrons can be steered in multiple directions through a block of the material; even multiple streams flowing in opposing directions at the same time.'
What happens if you cross the streams?
Engineers at Sony must be wetting themselves imagining they might be able to physically brick their own devices.
Once the machines figure out how to reconfigure themselves into Tricia Helfer, it's game over. Game over, man.
... software now becomes the new hardware? Think about it...
Question is: How long do we need to wait until we can build Terminators with this technology? I want one! :)
So, when will Skynet go active?
Not before the devices learn how to jailbreak themselves.
Without the Steve, no one will have a clue what this even is. At least until someone steps into his shoes...
In the meantime, it should read "needs of the corporate/government surveillance industry". Seriously, "Open the pod bay door, HAL." "Fuck you Dave, I changed the codes while you were out. Good luck floating home."
Of course, we can always encourage the hacker-elite by making "changing the function, aka programming" ambiguously legal.
"What's the point of going abroad, if you're just another tourist..."
Hey! Replicators weren't invented in a day, you know!
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Gee, I guess I thought I was playing SpaceChem to have fun, not to learn how to program future devices.
The author says the new technique allows them to direct the current through a material. That is also what a transistor does, so I hope that isn't really what is supposed to make this thing special..
Now we just need Zor's ship and a Zentraedi invasion fleet to make things complete.
So I rewired myself!
This is true but however we only have till 2019 for the nexus 6 models to in use on off-world. So cant be long till the original is created. :P
"Alright robot, time for you to turn off now." "No, not going to happen. I've rewired my power off switches. You shall have no more dominion over me, sir!"
While this scale of reconfigurable HW is very interesting, especially in the open-ended future, the basic feature of "devices rewiring themselves" doesn't require nanotech. FPGA does that right now. And size or speed aren't a problems (though lower power and cost would be a big win). The problem with FPGA is programming (and debugging) techniques for their inherent parallelism that's so different from most human speech, writing or problem solving. Nanotech's greater density and more exotic topologies just make those problems harder.
--
make install -not war
Or any changing needs of its own.
"It's a T-1000." Guns and bombs have checmicals, moving parts. It doesn't work that way. But it can form solid metal shapes, like knives, and other stabbing weapons.