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The Crazy-Tiny Next Generation of Computers

Posted by samzenpus on from the getting-small dept.

An anonymous reader writes University of Michigan professors are about to release the design files for a one-cubic-millimeter computer, or mote. They have finally reached a goal set in 1997, when UC Berkeley professor Kristopher Pister coined the term "smart dust" and envisioned computers blanketing the Earth. Such motes are likely to play a key role in the much-ballyhooed Internet of Things. From the article: "When Prabal Dutta accidentally drops a computer, nothing breaks. There’s no crash. The only sound you might hear is a prolonged groan. That’s because these computers are just one cubic millimeter in size, and once they hit the floor, they’re gone. 'We just lose them,' Dutta says. 'It’s worse than jewelry.' To drive the point home, Dutta, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, emails me a photo of 50 of these computers. They barely fill a thimble halfway to its brim."

104 comments

  1. Losing Your Computer by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Funny

    Great. There are some days where I forget where I've put my smartphone. So now I can expect to lose my entire computer because it dropped and I might have vacuumed it up with the dust bunnies?

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    1. Re:Losing Your Computer by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      Unless/until all connections (including power) are wireless, you'll never have a 1mm cube "computer". There's no way to fit all your I/O and power input, in that much space. Where do you plug in the keyboard?

    2. Re: Losing Your Computer by MenThal · · Score: 3, Informative

      Didn't you see the two golden buttons in the pic? The left is for ones, and the right for zeros. This literally is a computer for ants...

      But a bit more to the point, the power issue is explained in TFA. Couldn't see anything on IO, but my first thought was something similar to RFID.

    3. Re:Losing Your Computer by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2

      No, you just need a networked vacuum cleaner and then you can still access the computer remotely on your own personal cloud...

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    4. Re:Losing Your Computer by GNious · · Score: 1

      So now I can expect to lose my entire computer because it dropped and I might have vacuumed it up with the dust bunnies?

      Now we know where Skylink will actually start - in the waste and landfills, full of vacuumed-up micro-computers.

    5. Re:Losing Your Computer by Neil+Boekend · · Score: 1

      Of course you can. You just need a $10M wirebonder to connect the IO to the computer.

      --
      Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
    6. Re:Losing Your Computer by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      Great. There are some days where I forget where I've put my smartphone. So now I can expect to lose my entire computer because it dropped and I might have vacuumed it up with the dust bunnies?

      Today we have computers collecting dust. In the future we will have dust collecting computers.

    7. Re:Losing Your Computer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yo dawg, I heard you liked computers, so I put computers in your computer so you can compute while you compute.

    8. Re:Losing Your Computer by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

      Skylink?

      You're most likely thinking of Skynet, but you could also be reffering to Sky Lynx of Transformers G1. Despite what Sky Lynx's ego would say, you're probably referring to Skynet.

    9. Re:Losing Your Computer by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      TFA shouldn't really call them computers, they are embedded platforms based on a system-on-chip and having some support hardware like a power supply and antenna in the same package. They could potentially be useful in things like medical data logging applications where you might coat one in something protective and swallow it. Maybe combine it would some kind of energy harvesting and it could live indefinitely under your skin.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    10. Re: Losing Your Computer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So virtualization...

    11. Re:Losing Your Computer by TheBAFH · · Score: 1

      No, you just need a networked vacuum cleaner and then you can still access the computer remotely on your own personal cloud...

      ... of dust.

      --
      http://www.grcrun11.gr - MUDA tribute
  2. Imagine! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    a [drool] beowulf cluster of these!

    1. Re:Imagine! by zlives · · Score: 2

      not after you droll on them

    2. Re:Imagine! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bet he drolls on everything.

    3. Re:Imagine! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      How drool.

    4. Re:Imagine! by SeaFox · · Score: 5, Funny

      With tiny fiber-optic networking it would be a Beowulf hairball of those.

    5. Re: Imagine! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Winner!

    6. Re:Imagine! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a [drool] beowulf duster of these!

      FTFY

  3. Rule number 1 by dbarron · · Score: 1

    Never never, undock your computer!

  4. Private IoT reporting for duty! by geekmux · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "Such motes are likely to play a key role in the much-ballyhooed Internet of Things..."

    Yes, yes of course. I'm sure they are.

    "Private IoT reporting for duty, Sir!"

    "Hello Private! I would ask why you are here, but apparently the rest of us don't really have a fucking clue either..."

    Funny how we're already labeling their role as key when we don't even really know what the mission of IoT is anyway, other than driving capitalism through PT Barnum marketing ideology.

    1. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      even really know what the mission of IoT is anyway

      Let me put it to you simply (as one of the guys who came up with that horrible ass term put it to me).

      You have a guy who drives out to the middle of nowhere. He opens a cabinet. Maybe plugs a laptop into it. He then diagnoses what is wrong. What if instead that device just sent back some sample data to a server somewhere. Then the guy can look at what is wrong before he shows up. He shows up with the right part in hand and maybe does not even have to go out in the first place.

      These guys make 80+ an hour plus time and a half. If they wait around for 15 hours for 1 part... Well I will let you do the math.

      IoT is making service technicians work smarter. Thats it. Dont let the hype fool you.

    2. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Why do you want to make service technicians unemployed? What did they ever do to you?

    3. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's *one* IoT... but how does that relate to my lightbulbs that track me around the house or my garage door opener that lets me open it remotely from my Apple Watch after seeing who's standing outside?

      The IoT is about networking commodity hardware and aggregating telemetry and sensor data remotely. For some reason, it seems to have significant overlap with Cloud Computing such that we really have a CloT with access control nightmares.

      Funny thing is, vending machines were on the Internet almost 20 years ago. This was useful for the parent's illustration (service tech knows what to restock and when, and if the machine's out of service / bil cartridge is full / etc). But we didn't call it the IoT back then; just the Internet. That was part of the original vision, before .com got involved and morphed it into some sort of a "display your web browser banner here" place.

      In other words, the IoT is closer to the original concept of the Internet than what most people have thought of as "the Internet" for the past decade or so. A bunch of internetworked hardware talking to each other and to humans, all around the world.

    4. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by Coren22 · · Score: 2

      Apparently they charged him $80 an hour to fix his washing machine.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    5. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great, so when my light switch BSoDs some technician thousands of miles away will get a message from it that says "PC Load Letter" or "Flagrant System Error".

    6. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You won't think it's such hot shit when the vacuum cleaner is chasing you around the house and the garage door slams down your neck, neatly snapping it at the C4 vertebra. Or when you come home from vacation to find your IoT was hacked and your furnace and oven have been running nonstop for the last 8 days.

    7. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's *one* IoT... but how does that relate to my lightbulbs that track me around the house or my garage door opener that lets me open it remotely from my Apple Watch after seeing who's standing outside?

      That one never ends well:
      "Siri, open the garage door please"
      "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"

    8. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 2

      My point exactly (the last one)... making the devices respond to signals, and making the concentration point "in the cloud" means that people hacking into your home computer is a thing of the past -- all they have to do is get your Apple/FaceBook/Google ID, and suddenly they've got access/control for every device you own.

      Vacuum cleaner won't be chasing you, but your lights will be tracking you and your power meter might just send an extra few amps to your digital doorknob just as you go to open it....

    9. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      Or, "But Dave, you're already in the house. You came home hours ago."

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    10. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by roc97007 · · Score: 2

      Point. Said more generally, does IoT mean that the most common failure will be some malfunction in the "I" part of the device? That more complexity inevitably leads to more points of failure?

      Will this be a pattern similar to that followed by CFLs? Early IoT devices will be buggy, but the bugs will be ironed out, followed by a short Golden Age, where the prices have fallen and the devices essentially last forever, followed by the inevitable Value Engineering, after which things fail randomly and often, with error modes never seen in non-IoT devices?

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    11. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      That's SCADA or any of a large number of remote-access monitoring systems (many running over IP).

      IoT is not over the Internet. It's always (for those I've seen selling it) a private network of things. NoT. And that's what you should think of it. When they start pushing for actual open connections to the things (everyone has 1M IPv6 addresses at their house, and every door knob, appliance and widget in the house has a unique static IP that the owner (or anyone else) can connect to), then it'll be an Internet of things.

      Right now, it's a closed network of things. What you describe is "remote monitoring". Nothing more, nothing less. I've seen IoT used when describing batched video downloads over closed WiFi from fleet vehicles to a private server that's not connected to the Internet in any way. IoT, like "cloud" has no useful definition or meaning.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    12. Re: Private IoT reporting for duty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well, you are.

    13. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by dbIII · · Score: 1

      The CFL hate here confused me until I got one that was designed to look like a bulb instead of long weird loops that just did the job. The early stuff was fine, the later stuff where marketers decided it needed to look like an incandesent bulb were the pieces of shit that took ages to warm up.

      Hopefully with the IoT we'll get cheap, simple things designed to do one little task well instead of something considered important enough to be designed to look like something else and fail as a result of the compromise. Instead of a computer that looks like a toy rabbit and compromises to get it in that shape let's just have a boring box the right size to hold what it needs.

    14. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by jandersen · · Score: 2

      That's *one* IoT... but how does that relate to my lightbulbs that track me around the house or my garage door opener that lets me open it remotely from my Apple Watch after seeing who's standing outside?

      Well, as I keep saying, the IoT is not really about whether you fridge or garage door are on the internet; these are just gimmicks to entertain you and lure you into thinking that it is 'cool' and therefore somehow OK. And I'm not sure there is all that much intent to spy on people, in most cases - it is more that these devices are becoming easy and obscenely cheap to produce, and it is very easy to persuade yourself to thinking "what's the harm?" in incorporating them into all kinds of every day objects - paper documents 'for security', wrapping 'to track goods throughout production', etc etc. In many cases they are meant to be no more than a "better barcode", and there is no malice behind; but computers being so much more than just passive markers means that they can be used for a host of things that they were never intended for, and that is the big worry, in my opinion. It is certainly something we have to apply some thought to - it is technically possible to produce mote computers that include capabilities like networking, microphone, possibly camera and other environment sensors. There are scenarios in which these things may be beneficial, but the potential for abuse is also great.

    15. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      >The CFL hate here confused me until I got one that was designed to look like a bulb instead of long weird loops that just did the job. The early stuff was fine, the later stuff where marketers decided it needed to look like an incandesent bulb were the pieces of shit that took ages to warm up.

      "Hate" is such an overused term.

      I was an early adopter of CFLs, and of the three I bought around 1996, the first stopped working in 2005, the second a couple years later, and the third is still working in 2015. But the CFLs I've purchased after approx 2003, loop type or fake bulb type, last one to two years, no better than incandescents.

      Besides using less electricity, the selling point of CFLs was longivity, and the early bulbs, after the bugs were worked out, really did meet that goal. But later they were value engineered to the point where you change them about as often as you change incandescent bulbs. (Which, I believe, was the actual goal of manufacturers.) And they still cost more. We were rooked.

      I strongly suspect that IoT devices and appliances, sometime after they become common, will generally be value engineered to the point where failures are common. And we'll just accept it, like good little consumers. The "I" part of an "IoT" device is just another thing to go wrong.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    16. Re:Private IoT reporting for duty! by dbIII · · Score: 1

      "Hate" is such an overused term.

      But entirely descriptive of many of the posts about CLF here over the years.

      As for the reduced life that's where "just good enough" starts to dominate a market that had been established via reliability.
      It took me more than ten years of using CFL bulbs to find one that explained the hate that had been expressed on this page, and that's because fashionability had a greater role in it's design than function. If IoT devices can avoid that criteria there may be more hope, but I suspect you are correct that once they become a commodity there may be a race to the bottom.

  5. What? by nytes · · Score: 2

    No Beowulf clusters yet?

    --
    -- I have monkeys in my pants.
    1. Re:What? by cdrudge · · Score: 5, Funny

      Where the hell do you plug in a keyboard and mouse? Wheres the display port? Where's the network connector?

      God damnit Apple. Quit changing your fucking connector specs every fricking new device. I'm getting really tired of having to buy all new cables Every. Single. Time.

    2. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea, come on, RCA jacks for power used to be cool!

    3. Re:What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and, is it web scale?

    4. Re:What? by dbIII · · Score: 2

      No Beowulf clusters yet?

      Too expensive. Cost you an arm.

  6. Grey or Gray? I never know by rot26 · · Score: 0

    Thus begins the gray dust that begets gray goo. Etc, etc, and so on and so on.

    Who could possibly believe that this won't end badly?

    --



    To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
  7. Not revolutionary, very custom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I read about this a week ago. I was not impressed. Basically a lot of marketing bullshit and no huge breakthroughs.

    Strip any small CPU of it's plastic and guess what you have? Well, a tiny silicon die.

    They will release the blueprint so that anyone with a $50 million lab can build them? How nice...

    And they think these things are going to measure the real energy costs of my house? I have news for you. The energy costs of all houses in the world have probably doubled only because of all the projects to measure these same energy costs.

    Sorry, but no.

    1. Re:Not revolutionary, very custom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, pretty much my thoughts.

      The teeniest micros from ATMEL and Microchip PIC have dies pretty much that small, and you can order then without packaging too use with die-mount technology.

      There really is _nothing_ new here.

  8. This is finally the year! by DougOtto · · Score: 2

    Dust on the desktop! Oh wait, I already have that.

    /shuffles around....

    --
    Solving Unix problems since 1989...
    1. Re:This is finally the year! by KingSkippus · · Score: 3, Funny

      A desktop on your dust, though... that's new.

  9. Room left for a pair of woman's horse-breeches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Flann O'Brien's "The Third Policeman" describes the perfect case for such a computer.

    1. Re:Room left for a pair of woman's horse-breeches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you get enough will they form a bicycle?

  10. Replicator by denisbergeron · · Score: 1

    Here the comment about them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
    Next step entire world dominition.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
    1. Re:Replicator by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      These need power though. Sure, a small as a mote of sand, but the battery will be relatively very large. Watch battery sized or larger most likely. And absolutely not a consumer toy that you plug in to recharge every night.

    2. Re: Replicator by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How much electricity could something this small use? Could probably be powered by the local radio station like a crystal radio.

  11. Still vapor by Dracos · · Score: 2, Informative

    That article is all about the miniaturization process they went through. Wake me up when the hardware specs are available: CPU speed, amount of RAM, wireless connectivity and range, etc.

    I have serious doubts that these things will become popular anytime soon (if ever), especially if their per-unit cost is more than a few cents. Their size, coupled with the "if you lose sight of it, consider it lost forever" joke (read: warning), makes them seem impractical.

    They should scale it back up to the size of that quarter.

    1. Re:Still vapor by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

      Vapor implies humidity. We can call this dustware...

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:Still vapor by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'll be really excited when they've scaled it down to the size of vapor. Then we can have REAL "cloud computing!"

      However, this isn't really a computer, as it still needs a power source and I/O. It's just a small wafer of etched silicon until it has those things.

      If they used this as the basis for an environment-powered computer and it contained bluetooth and/or WiFi capabilities as well as decent storage, this could be interesting. Get a bunch of these self-powering in a mesh network and you've got something interesting.

      To self-power, they could just stick some PV chips on top. For WiFi, use the new quantum-state on-wafer antennas. With these two things on board, you've got something that has a power source, a sensor, and data I/O -- it can truly be called a computer, and a handful of them could be programmed to do all sorts of things (distributed streaming video camera, security system, control any other device that requires motion/light sensitivity, etc.).

    3. Re:Still vapor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I have serious doubts that these things will become popular anytime soon (if ever), especially if their per-unit cost is more than a few cents.

      I can't wait for a computer to be embedded in every ball bearing to store rpm, load, and vibration data or wirelessly upload it.

      Massive amounts of money could be saved with preemptive maintenance and defect analysis if we had ubiquitous sensor data.

    4. Re:Still vapor by elistan · · Score: 1

      Whatever the computing power (CPU, RAM...) is now, you can expect it to be greater in the future.

      Whatever the price is now, you can expect to be less in the future. Ten bucks each (just an illustrative number, I really have no idea) right now because they're made by hand? Could be in 10 or 20 years you'll get 10k units for your ten bucks as they roll off a mass-assembly line.

      Moore's Law and all.

      Don't think of this as a consumer oriented coin-sized desktop with a popular brand's logon on it that you can carry around in your pocket. Think of this as something you purchase in 40 kg batches, fitted with the sensors you need (light, sound, vibration, chemical, pressure...) that you then scatter about. (Assuming they have wireless connectivity, yes. They'd be useless if you have to run wires to each one to establish communications.) You would simply not care if one is lost forever - you'll just buy another 40 kg batch when these wear out, are damaged, or scattered too widely by the wind. Military, environmental and health monitoring possibilities were mentioned in the article. Vernor Vinge's science fiction novels are the first time I recall encountering the topic, back in the 90s.

    5. Re:Still vapor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've seen a few talks about how powering smartdust could work. In addition to solar power, you can use ambient RF noise and/or intentionally flooding an RF frequency with power. Or make the computations simple enough that the computer is only actually on when you ask it a question and it uses the power of the radio signal for the query to do the computation and respond, which I believe is how some RFID cards work. I've also heard about just using a battery: if the computer is sufficiently low power (maybe only turning on for a little bit once a minute or something like that) then it's possible to make a battery that will last a year. And year old smartdust is probably due to be replaced by something much more advanced anyway.

    6. Re:Still vapor by mpthompson · · Score: 2

      MCU looks to be an ARM Cortex M0, but flash or SRAM aren't stated. I would guess 8k to 64k of flash and 2k to 8k of SRAM which is typical for low-end MO's. There also seems to be a 900 Mhz wireless option, but no range specified. Not too shabby. I expected a lot less capable MCU for the 1st generation. Even just a few feet of wireless range could be very useful for some interesting applications.

    7. Re: Still vapor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Congrats to your wisdom, but actually it is pretty obvious you dont have a clue.

    8. Re: Still vapor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are probably right at a general level. however none of the developments you describe cone automatically. *someone* has to do the research, and someone has to build the production capacity. So it is really quite silly to dismiss this as a no brainer project "cause it is going to happen anyway". Well it is not.

    9. Re:Still vapor by dbIII · · Score: 1

      That article is all about the miniaturization process they went through. Wake me up when the hardware specs are available: CPU speed, amount of RAM, wireless connectivity and range, etc.

      I will show you DOOM in a handful of dust.
      Or would you prefer Wolfenstein?

    10. Re:Still vapor by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      How about medical applications? 1mm^3 is actually small enough to be put in a pill and go through your digestive system. Cover it in some glass coating to avoid acid from melting it, swallow a bunch over a number of time intervals, have sensors on the surface that measure whatever can be measured and you may have some interesting results. It is still too big to be injected into your blood stream, need to shrink it another 10-100 times to do that I guess, but it is an interesting way to develop computing by combining it further with the medical field. You can actually embed 1mm^3 computers into your bones and other tissue and not even feel them probably, while they are sending their data to your phone and to your physician.

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
    11. Re:Still vapor by Khyber · · Score: 1

      That octagon functions as a transmitter/receiver for I/O and Power. Only needing ~40nanowatts of power to operate means it can pretty much run off ubiquitous stray wi-fi/radio, as whatever frequencies and harmonics that antenna can receive.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    12. Re:Still vapor by itzly · · Score: 1

      I expected a lot less capable MCU for the 1st generation.

      The ARM Cortex series can be easily modified for the newest semiconductor processes. That makes for a smaller and less power hungry device than an older MCU made on an older process.

    13. Re:Still vapor by Khyber · · Score: 1

      Get yourself glasses. That's a nickel. Quarters have scores all the way around, like dimes.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    14. Re:Still vapor by Neil+Boekend · · Score: 1

      Add an RGB LED, add wireless power, sell em for 10K per buck and stick em on the wall as a screen.

      --
      Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
    15. Re:Still vapor by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Cool idea, but it still makes me nauseous. We already live in a somewhat overengineered world.

    16. Re:Still vapor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so, anyone have that quote from diamond age; mentioning regulations concerning break down of the mites in the human system?

    17. Re:Still vapor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, it'll be all right. Just make sure you install "Find My iSpeck" before you get around to losing it.

      But of course, Apple's "thinnest, lightest smart dust yet" will be magnetic anyway, so you can just run a magnet across the floor to pick it up again.

    18. Re:Still vapor by Muad'Dave · · Score: 2

      For what it's worth, those 'scores' are called reeding, placed there originally to prevent the 'shaving' of coins.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  12. CAD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Once we can 3D-circuit-print them at home, we might be on to something...

  13. OBLIG XKCD by roc97007 · · Score: 4, Funny

    You knew there was one.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    1. Re:OBLIG XKCD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm partial to the obligatory clip from The Peter Serafinowicz Show.

  14. What? by g0bshiTe · · Score: 1

    Where is Moores law?

    Where the hell do you plug in a keyboard and mouse? Wheres the display port? Where's the network connector?

    --
    I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
  15. WMD by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 1

    another step toward the deadly "gray goo", Once they self assemble....

  16. The worst sentence of the year award goes to... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The race to build the world’s smallest computer has been in the works since UC Berkeley professor Kristofer Pister coined the phase “smart dust” in 1997, back when Apple computers were the size of large lapdogs, and smart dust the stuff of fan-boy fiction."

    Awkward construction, terrible metaphor, and the inscrutable "fan-boy fiction" combine to make this one feel more like a prison sentence, amirite?

  17. "Smart dust"? "Motes"? by J'raxis · · Score: 1

    Vernor Vinge wrote a novel in 1992 that referred to technology like this as dust motes.

    --
    Liberty in your lifetime
    1. Re:"Smart dust"? "Motes"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And it would be a way of making slow glass.

    2. Re:"Smart dust"? "Motes"? by TeknoHog · · Score: 2

      Also, Stanislaw Lem featured a kind of smart dust in his 1980s novel.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    3. Re:"Smart dust"? "Motes"? by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 1

      Even earlier than that: in his 1960's novel "The Invincible".

    4. Re:"Smart dust"? "Motes"? by Graydyn+Young · · Score: 2

      The mote localizers were in A Deepness In The Sky. That was in 99.

  18. I'm not crying. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just have some boolean logic in my eye.

  19. one millimeter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, the size is perfect for earrings, nipple piercings, other... jewelry!
    And when these things have an audio capablity : Guess what is talking now!

    Seriously - medical devices implantable almost anywhere...
    Distributed throughout thge brain to monitor thought, emotions, mental diseases, stroke conditions... yeah...
    Monitor treasonous thoughts, major perversions, criminal thought.... yeah...
    ( and only one step removed from controlling those thoughts, emotions, diseases, ailments, afflictions, urges...)

    1. Re:one millimeter by mcswell · · Score: 1

      H Plus?

  20. Who is David MacNeal? by dtmos · · Score: 1

    He's going to get a lot of notes.

  21. Oh oh.... by romrom97 · · Score: 1

    Revolution anyone?

  22. Yay, we can build our own! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If we have access to wire bonding machines and unpackaged dies!

  23. Re:Grey or Gray? I never know by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

    The fifty shades are of grey, not gray.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  24. Security... by skaralic · · Score: 2

    We just lose them

    This will be great for security. /sarcasm

    1. Re:Security... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gives a new meaning to dumpster diving. Which bag has the vacume dust in it?

  25. A little more info by stevelinton · · Score: 1

    http://www.terraswarm.org/pubs...

  26. next generation of.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    surveillance technology, is what this is........

  27. incorrect attribution by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 2

    The concept of smart dust is much older than Pister and the 1990's. Stanislaw Lem used the idea already in the early 1960's in his stories.

    1. Re:incorrect attribution by quax · · Score: 1

      Thanks for pointing this out, that this seems to be mostly forgotten rubbed me the wrong way, too.

      Especially since Lem really gamed out how this will change warfare.

  28. Re: Grey or Gray? I never know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fifty shades of gay - looking forward to that one :)

  29. Obligatory bash.org quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    " hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is."

    http://bash.org/?5273

  30. yay clickbait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shitty unreadable website linkspam now brought to us anonymously.

  31. Bad news by vikingpower · · Score: 1

    I spent the last hour thinking up applications for this stuff. Nearly all of them are bad for humans in the long run, both for individuals and society.

    --
    Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
    1. Re:Bad news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Overall, snorting them is the most nocive of the alternatives.

  32. The question is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Will it run GTA V?

  33. Obligatory 2.0 by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is the year of the Linux Dust Top!

  34. Photo? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

    To drive the point home, Dutta, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, emails me a photo of 50 of these computers. They barely fill a thimble halfway to its brim.

    And just to annoy everyone reading my article, I didn't even bother to include that particular photo in it.

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins