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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.'"
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*. ...
Just think what you could do with a bunch of robots built like this and an "evolution" experiment!
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
No, that's not all. There's also this gem: 'Our new steering technology allows use[sic] to direct current flow...'.
Author of Enyo: Up and Running from O'Reilly Media
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...
So, when will Skynet go active?
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..."
I think the point is the speed at which these circuits can be reconfigured. It's like having an FPGA you can reflash on JIT timescales.
Someone had to do it.
Apparently it does.
Article astroturfing aside, this sounds like a very interesting technology. All this other garbage was just someone trying to make more buzz for it.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Hey! Replicators weren't invented in a day, you know!
Error: No error occurred
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!"
and was later edited to
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.
Question- can FPGAs be 'rewired' in 3 dimensions? I haven't even read about then in years.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
"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.