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Smart Dust
kris writes "The german Telepolis magazine from Heise put up a small article about Kris Pister and Randy Katz creating small laser-driven wireless communicating swarm-computing nano-devices called MEMS. This is right out of a Neal Stevenson novel, The Diamond Age. The article is in english language.
" I wish there's was more details to this article-if you find more, please post below. Update: 09/08 12:15 by H :Check out New Scientist for more information too.
Okay, it wasn't exactly the same, but Bob Shaw's 'slow glass' was around decades before Neal Stephenson. Not that I'm dissing the great man; but Bob Shaw was one of my favourite writers ever.
New Scientist has a related article .
Interesting how the first use that the article mentions for them is suirveillance. Or, to quote the article:
It is not inconceivable that motes could be fitted with minaturised microphones or tempest attack technology...
With a (reliable) 150m range. Superfreakyscary.
Is it to late to get a degree in nano-mechanics so I can have my homemade (open-sourced) Hunter-Killer Nanites surrounding my house 24/7?
In any event, I think we all know what the new growth market in tech in 10 years will be.
And last but not least, for you biologists out there. Would nanites of this size be large enough to deliver a biological payload? Remote-controlled, precise plague-bearers?
Good-morning. Welcome to the brave new world.
--sugarman--
minimal -- at least in the civilian arena. Yes, I can think of a number of applications for a dustmote-sized observation units, but most civilian applications don't have a need for such minuscule size. Military and spy applications, on the other hand, would most benefit from such a technology.
I am not dissing the invention -- it is indeed a substantial step forward for science and technology. Rather, I am lamenting the fact that the coolest and most powerful stuff is most useful for applications other than peaceful ones. It is a sad state of affairs, when the our military and spy needs are far ahead technologically of the peaceful ones. Almost as bad as back in USSR, where all the cool tech went to the army, and the civilians got the dregs of it.
What can I say? I just wish that we as a species simply thought for a moment about this perversion, about the fact that our best and brightest is spent on either spying on, or destroying, one another -- still so now, even after the Cold War is over.
--
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Victor Danilchenko
But surveillance? Tempest detectors? Sounds like a wonderful way to practice Van Eck Phreaking easily.
One thing I think these motes lack; the article implies that they are all remotely controlled and emit back and forth to a single receptor. Sounds as stupid as the battledroids in SW: TPM, if you ask me. Get the relay station and you kill a slew of them at once.
What these buggers need is something akin to "locus" communication. That is, one particular mote should communicate only with the few within a very small range, and receive communications from them. Swarms of locusts, or flights of birds work this way, for instance. A bird, for instance, patterns its flight after the birds nearer to him, and they are all connected in a single pattern that seems perfectly synchronised.
Then, the swarm of motes can communicate as a single entity back to the central or whatever it may be, and this works regardless of how many mites are destroyed by accidental sneezing or a sudden itch.
I'd be willing to mention this to Berkeley if I didn't fear the FBI would infest my room with them next. :)
Hey, I can see a nice combination of borderline schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive behaviour emerging here: keep cleaning everything because the FBI may be spying on you. :)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
It's not Neil. It's not Stevenson. I've seen both used here on Slashdot lately, by "fans" who should know better.
It is Neal Stephenson.
And speaking of smart dust, I just read Diamond Age, and that part where the Judge's assistant's book began accumulating a layer of dust just gave me the creeps!
--JT