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The Crazy-Tiny Next Generation of Computers
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."
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.
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.
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.