Perhaps this may be modded as redundant, but I'll say it anyway. I read this series when it first came out in Analog this year. I looked forward to each issue that came out and read it rapidly.
What struck me the most about this whole series was the striking differences in our culture and the one developed by the Neanderthal alternate universe culture. Yes, it's fiction, but it did an excellent job pointing out how historical changes can influence generations of culture, beliefs, and technology. For example, the Neanderthals decided to have everyone monitored with personal monitoring devices, so in the event of a crime, there was a 100% chance of proving or disproving who did the crime. The ultimate in police state monitoring, and yet, the entire Neanderthal culture agreed to not abuse this monitoring, and had it set up in such a way that the monitoring would only be accessed during the event of a crime. Privacy wasn't an issue with this culture, so it came as quite a shock to the main Neanderthal when he was transplanted to our universe that we had such issues.
The parallels and contrasts between such two entirely different, and yet very possible cultures that could have happened here on earth make this series well worth reading. I'm looking forward to more work from the author.
Re:One thing I've NEVER seen here....
on
Fair IP Laws?
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· Score: 5, Informative
In the chemical industry (where I work) here's how patents have gotten out of control and have become an inhibator to innovation, rather than a protector/promoter of innovation.
It starts with patent examiners not being experts in the art. Therefore, what is "obvious to those skilled in the art" who wrote the patent is not obvious to the patent examiner. Therefore, you see patents where claims are made that have no basis in scientific proof because the patent examiner can't find a previous claim which would invalidate the patent claim. The reason for this is that the science behind the bullshit claim does not exist, and therefore, cannot be discovered as prior art.
Here's another abuse of the system. Very often a company will produce a patent with no intention of actually practicing the technology. Instead, they do it to prevent their competitor, (who can make the chemical cheaper with their unique process), from making the chemical for profit. Instead, the non-patent holding company now has to pay a royalty fee to sell the chemical for its original use. So, the company without the patent instead never makes the material, no matter how good it is, because the proposed royalty fees are outrageously expensive.
The patent system is not just broken in the area of software, its also broken in the scientific field. This is why you see corporations trying to patent DNA sequences, natural compounds, basic research, and everything they can to prevent others from using it. I imagine that the practices I listed above are probably also used in the software industry, where a company will issue a patent just to prevent someone else from using a similar piece of code.
Technically (note I say technically) this is the way the system is supposed to work now, and here's the existing loopholes around some of your points, or my commentary on how I would add to what you proposed: (My comments start with -->)
All copyrights must be held by a private individual. No corporate entity may hold a copyright. -->If you look at the patents now, you can see actual individual names on the patents. However, the company that employed that actual person paid for that work, and they (the corporation) take it as their property in compensation for continued employment/pay. Company X pays person Y to generate Patent Z for Company X. Then company X pays individual Y $1 + salary for Patent Z. Nasty - yes. Legal - sadly yes.
Copyright expires upon the death of the copyright holder. --> I would not like to see this. I could imagine a whole underworld business designed to assassinate copyright/patent holders to make their work free for all. Companies with shitty business ethics might kill so they can practice a patent free of charge.
Copyrights cannot be assigned to another entity -->Currently this can be done (and patents as well) under liscencing. Otherwise - you wouldn't see all the cool Star Wars toys made by Mattel, not-so-cool Episode II Crunch by General Mills, etc. Eliminate liscencing and you're limited to whoever owns the copyright having to promote and pay for all of their own stuff.
Patent
Patents must be held by individuals, not corporate entities -->See my comments above
Only physical objects and processes may be patented. -->That's how it is now. If the "process" generates a "virtual object", that's covered as well.
A working implementation of the patented process must be provided (upon request of USPTO) -->This I agree with completely! Currently, under US Law, you don't have to provide any working example (or proof) that your patent is real. Only novelty of idea. Europe is different where you have to prove novelty AND improvement over existing processes and materials. However, I would amend this to not be upon request, but with every patent. If you can't prove your patent isn't bullshit, you should not be granted a patent.
Naturally occuring results of processes may not be patented (ex: DNA) -->Technically, chemical reactions are natural reactions, so you just threw out every single chemical process. How would one define what is natural and what is man-made (un-natural)?
The USPTO must conduct a good faith search for any prior art -->The USPTO does this now for every patent they review. With every patent, in the USPTO is a "binder" which shows the prior art search (some are rather impressive and deep). However, current patent examiners ARE NOT experts in the art, so they don't know how to interpret the prior art correctly, which is why a lot of patents which are garbage get allowed, and some patents which are legit never issue. What the patent office really needs is a body of real experts who review patents for hire. The problem is finding individuals who don't have conflicting interests to review those patents.
-->I fully agree that the current patent system (not just in the US) needs an overhaul, but mostly they just need to enforce the rules as they exist now and get better patent examiners.
Since the IBM experiments (and others done elsewhere) almost always use single wall carbon nanotubes, there are a few issues of practical nature I wonder about with this technology.
One is that single wall nanotubes are oxygen sensitive. Specifically, contact with O2 will cause single site defects in the nanotube structure, thus causing the whole nanotube to lose its electronic properties. It makes me wonder about how they will package these "molecular transistors" such that O2 can't get to it, but the encapsulation of the nanotube doesn't cause it to short out.
Another is that when these things heat up, they do ignite. As we've seen with the light-based ignition shown in Science and here on slashdot, these materials do burn. The above mentioned oxygen reaction sometimes causes the semi-conducting nanotubes to become insulators, thus they heat up, ignite, and disintegrate. So I'm wondering if frying one's nanotube-based chip would be more than just a figurative term if this happened.
Finally, there is the fabrication issue. I know that in the near future, one can make kilotons of nanotubes, and probably even kilograms of single wall nanotubes today (maybe 2kg a year, but you don't need that much if you only need 1 nanotube), but how are you going to fabricate them into architechures onto chips with existing chip fabrication technology?
Maybe IBM has all this worked out. I do have to remember that what they've published today is what they already have covered in patents and what they've been working on already for several months to one year. They don't publish unless they've got more going on AND if they already have the technology protected.
Actually, carbon nanotubes can be mass produced - depending on what your scale of "mass production" is. If you only need 1 carbon nanotube per transistor, you can get a HUGE amount of nanotubes from 1 kg of material. Compaies like this one (www.cnanotech.com), [Run by Richard Smalley, who co-discovered Fullerenes] are working to mass production (sub kiloton) of carbon nanotubes. Maybe not single-wall nanotubes, buth they're getting there.
Yes, I agree with you that slimy and shady practices have been around since the dawn of time - it's sadly in human nature. As for the comment you're either a moral person by 30 or not, I disagree. People can be reformed, but I will admit it does get harder as one goes on in age. So in that light, I would agree that teaching it in High School or sooner is a very good idea. Ideally that is what Religion and parents are supposed to help address, but earlier (pre-college) education can certainly help. Civics and government classes really don't cover this subject very well (at least not the ones I took and the ones my friends and relations took)
That being said, military strategy and Machiavelli ARE being taught in business school, but not at the MBA level. Its taught to business executives at much higher end business school refresher courses. So the exec comes out with these ideas and if he or she decides to apply them, then those beneath them follow the example, realizing they need to do this to stay employed. If, however, enough of them had a strong enough sense of ethics to say no, then you might, just might, be able to put a check and balance system on the execs. That however, I doubt will happen, so I stand by my comments that additional ethics need to be taught, and this strategic/Machivellian stuff dumped. Your insight that this behavior has always existed, and that it should also be taught at earlier ages is also right on, but I still think that additional exposure can certainly help.
Interestingly, these ideas are already being tackled. You can get an idea of how the workload is being broken up by reading an article on Low Tech Improving the 3rd World (Wired, April 2002, pages 108-115)
The way it would work is that you figure out what all resources a project needs, then you break it down into appropriate parts. If you read the article you'll see what I mean. One example is a simple water pump - and they broke up the workload (some of it donated on other people's off time) by dividing it into materials, engineering, and distribution. Each member handled their own part until it was done.
For this proposed project, you'll probably sign up by listing your areas of expertise (like a resume), and then when a project is proposed, you search through the skill sets until you find what you need, and then you assign that particular person to "Think" on that part of the problem and then report in when they're done. Its not really that different than working in a team. Now your team may truly be distributed among the world.
Its an interesting point - the blurred line between commercial art and "museum quality" art. You even have artists and commerical artists, those who paint and sculpt, and those who paint and sculpt for a specific product.
Let's take Coca-Cola's logo for example. Some people collect the logos as they change throughout the years as it reflects tastes of the times, some do it because its a favorite product. Some call it art, or Americana, or Kitch Culture, or commercial advertising and not art. I'm inclined to follow the phrase "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", and along that line, art is anything that it takes creative inspiration to create. Along that line, everyone has their own definition of what is art and what isn't. Now that I think about it, its all a matter of personal opinion.
Its things like this that make me think a whole overhaul of business schools and other institutions of higher learning is needed. I think things like this have always gone on, but they seem a lot more nasty and prevalent now.
All this crap probably started when Business schools starting using military strategy and Machiavellian philosopy as the ultimate way to win a war with business competition. So in the light of the "ends justify the means", now we have business practices by those who only want their company to win, and they don't care how they do it. Hence my comment about ethics. What goes around comes around, and eventually the entire business world is even more backstabbing and evil than it was before. If its taught in school that this behavior leads to this damage in the system, or the students experience it first hand, perhaps things like this would not happen any more.
All that being said, I'm glad to see that the Law in place to prevent this un-ethical behavior has been used as it was meant to, to stop this sort of unethical behavior. I'd still rather see the solution to the problem be stopping the problem before it occurs, rather than correcting the behavior after the action has been done.
I think this presentation is an outstanding idea. When I think about the number of computer game background scenes I have seen in games, there are many that have a beauty to them. Laugh if you will, but occasionally I'll stop in gameplay to just look around and enjoy the scenery. I remember a particullarly "Unreal" (sorry for the pun) experience when I first got a 3D card that came with Unreal. I stopped shortly after the 1st level when I came out into the outside area, and just stopped and panned around enjoying the scenery of the waterfall and the birds flying overhead.
The whole MYST series is a perfect example of this, especially with the improved Graphics and 3D views of MYST III: Exile. Its like a painting of a landscape or natural scene, except what is presented is un-natural, but still enjoyable to look at and behold.
Art, and what is appreciated as art, can show up in just about any medium, from canvas to sculpture and now an electronic/virtual medium.
Today's EULAs are indeed difficult to read and many of the terms often make me regret I bought the software - but I'm in a catch 22 here. To read the EULA I have to open the box, thus preventing me from returning the software box (thanks to those "we won't accept opened software" clauses at so many stores). So I'm now stuck with a $50 software purchase and so I can at least claim some of my $50 worth, I'll usually agree to the EULA just so I can install it and recoup my losses.
Right now they list system requirments on the box, so I think they should have an abbreviated version of the EULA on the box so you know what you're getting into (no resale clause, one copy per computer clause regardless of household, etc.) before you purchase.
Realizing that what I've proposed is difficult to implement and probably impractical, I still think if put in place you'd see how fast friendly EULAs sell the product, and those with restrictive EULAs get heavily pirated and/or not sold off the shelves. Also, I'd think open-source material would sell rather well due to the nice EULA agreement.
Thanks for pointing that out. Hmmm...I think the researchers are incorrect in saying that there is oxygen inside the tubes, its really too small a cavity to hold enough oxygen to be meaningful in this reaction. Outside the tubes however...well..there may be other things going on.
However, I missed the part about them trying it in the absence of oxygen. The change of the shape suggests that my idea about bond strain is not so far off. Since oxygen isn't present when the bonds break, the tubes cannot combust/explode. Instead the bonds break and rearrange to move to structures with less bond strain. Still very interesting results either way.
I don't remember the article saying that there was a slow burn of the material - more of a rapid ignition and pop. There may have been a slow combustion as you describe, but the rapid ignition, and forceful release of the air in the flask described sounds more like an explosion rather than slow combustion. I'd have to observe the phenomena myself to determine if its a classical "explosion" or simply carbon "burning".
As for oxygen in the carbon nanotube interior - there is no oxygen in the interior, as these were described as closed (capped) carbon nanotubes, which are formed under inert (non-oxygen) atmospheres. Almost all nanotubes to date have been "empty", in that no other molecules are present in them after formation. As with all things in chemistry, there are exceptions, but I'm quite sure that these materials were empty. Therefore, oxygen would have been involved in the oxidative degradation (burning) on the outside of the tubes, not the inside. Even if they were filled, the amount of anything inside the tube would have been picoliters (1.0x10-12) of material, not enough to force an audible "pop". The diameter of a carbon nanotube is quite small (50 nm I think, depending on the carbon nanotube geometry).
Your comment makes me wonder if the materials would have rapidly decomposed if kept under nitrogen or argon, rather than air, in the flask.
I guess I'll just have to wait until the full article comes out to get more answers to my questions.
After reading the article, there is still a lot of questions regarding the mechanism of nanotube degradation.
One question that comes to mind is the wavelength of the light produced by the flash. Some materials are stable to some wavelengths, but fall apart under others. The wavelength of that light may have been just right to exite the electrons in the bonds of the nanotube and cause them to break.
I think we need to look at the structure of the nanotube itself. The single-wall nanotubes have a huge amount of bond strain, and therefore, are somewhat unstable already. What lends support to the heat dissipation arguement is the structure similiarity between the carbon nanotubes (high strain) and graphite (low-strain). Graphite and carbon nanotubes both conduct electricity well, but both are thermal insulators. Graphite however, has no bond strain or instablity, and glows upon heating (releasing the excess energy as light). What I think happens with the single wall nanotubes is not just heat dissipation.
Since the nanotubes have a lot of bond strain due to their structure, they have a lot of energy built into the structure. However, those strained bonds can be easily broken by putting in enough energy to break them. Once the bonds break, they release bond strain, and therefore, the energy built into the structure. So, its not just heat dissipation, I think what we're seeing here is that intense light is powerful enough to break the bonds in the carbon nanotube, and once that happens, the bond strain energy is released catastrophically, thus causing the explosion/ignition. So each nanotube explodes at the same time, not one leading to another.
All that being said, this may be the first example of a light-detonated organic chemical degradation. Most are heat generate or shock generated (kinetic energy). Light is almost unheard of. Very interesting result.
"9/11" is merely a modern version of: "Remember the Alamo" "Remember the Maine" "Buy War Bonds" "Loose Lips Sink Ships" "Defeat the Hun" "The Crusade in Europe" "The Evil Empire"
Each major even which has spurred the US to War has had some slogan or phrase attached to it which reminds us why we're fighting. Given how modern society is big into abbreviations, I don't view the moniker "9/11" or "911" as a trivialization, merely our society's personal mnemomic reminding us what happened on September 11th, 2001, and why we're doing the things we're doing, or at least why our government is doing what its doing. Its not a reflection of pop culture, but it is a reflection of current US culture.
Mr. Katz has it all wrong. IT is not going to be the area of tech that will boom post 9/11 as we go into a much different type of war, a war of cloak and dagger and targeted, precise military actions. The fields of tech that will undergo booms in funding will not be IT, or computers, it will be Chemistry, Physics, Aerospace engineering, and Biotech.
Biotech will get the most - designed to come up with biowarfare countermeasures (better Anti-biotics for Anthrax, better vaccienes (sp?))
Physics will get the next most for new weapons, counter measures, and the ever famous missle defense shield. Think applied physics in the areas of superconductors and photonics for ground and air-based chemical lasers.
Aerospace engineering will get quite a bit from the govt. to develop better unmanned drones, superior targeting equipment, and replacing all the bombs getting dropped in Afghanistan and maybe Iraq later.
Chemistry will get the last batch of major funding, for new explosives (Thermobaric bombs were a combination of applied physics and new explosive chemistry), chemical detection equipment (analytical chemistry, micro-sensors for detecting micromoles of chem warfare/neurotoxin agents), and chemical support for the applied phyics field listed above. Probably even new polymeric materials for aerospace applications.
There will indeed be another tech boom, but its not going to be in IT. Given the enemies of the US in this war on terrorists, IT is useful in getting intelligence on the enemy, but its going to be the ground forces and new weapons that take them out, not an improved IT solution or technology. Unless that IT allows one to fly an unmanned drone better, its not going to get much more funding than it already gets.
I think part of the reason why Ron Howard got best Director for "A Beautiful Mind" was that he filmed the movie in chronological sequence. To be more specific, most directors shoot a movie out of sequence - one scene from the end of the movie one month, another scene from the beginning after that, another one from the middle after that, and so on, finally editing the whole thing at the end from scenes all shot out of sequence. Ron Howard shot the whole movie in order. He started at the beginning and worked his way to the end. The commentary was that this has never been done before, at least not sucessfully.
All that being said, I think LOTR and Peter Jackson should have won best movie and best director, but I think Ron Howard's chronological shooting sequence, and his several previous nominations, probably helped him clinch the voting this year.
We actually have a pretty nice remote PC setup here at where I work.
The way it is setup is that the company standarized ALL of its PCs and laptops. So first off, everyone has the exact same "workstation", same processor, same RAM, hardware, etc. Then we have the exact same basic software installed on every single machine (MS Windows, Office, Anti-virus, etc.) Therefore, when we download or connect to our workstation accounts, we don't have to download the application software as well. Everyone's personal account files (work related files, email, etc.) then reside not on the PC in their office, but on a remote drive than can be accessed anywhere in the company's network - worldwide. The way its set up now is that I can leave my Michigan office, fly down to Texas, go to a company PC there, log in with my user ID and password, and bring up all of my email and working documents and work there. When I'm done, I save everything, shut it down, and then I can access it again at another PC somewhere else. We have people here to access their files from around the world, as they travel to all of the company's locations across the world.
Unfortunately, I can't comment on the server software we use that allows all of this, as I'm merely a user of the sytem, rather than an administrator. However, in the time I've been using it, it works VERY well, preventing downtime if your PC in your office goes down.
Now the system does have its problems. If the server which handles your personal account is down, you can't access any of your files or email. If a network connection is down or slow, same problem. I usually make backups of very important files on my office PC so that if the network crashes, I can still work.
Now that I've described what we have, it makes me think that what I've described is more of a LAN or company-wide network accessable system, rather than internet based, accessable by any dial-up or other connection. However, it does work, allowing all of us here to use just about any computer anywhere on the company network.
Perhaps free speech is more of a choice issue. You have the choice to listen to an idea or ideas (speech), or to broadcast/speak your ideas to others. However, the listener or speaker does not have the freedom to make you listen or prevent you from listening to one or more specific sets of ideas.
Therefore, it would be censorship of free speech if an outside source prevented you from listening to an idea. It would not be censorship if you set your computer to block out ideas you personally found offensive and did not want to hear about. Provided the citizen has the freedom of choice to speak (or not speak) his or her particular ideas, without forcing others to listen to it, I don't think censorship is an issue. As long as freedom of choice is there, I think all is well.
There is of course, an exception to this, in that if the freedom of speech exposes one to unnecessary danger or can endanger others, then perhaps it should be censored. This is where I think most of the arguements over censorship occur, as one person's censored material is another person's prized free speech. Pornography is one example. Racist speech is another. Some of us want it, and others don't. One side says its harmful, the other claims its their right to tell dissenting views. Ultimately, its up to the majority to decide what should freely open (dissent and agreement) and what should be either censored or relegated to fringe (you have to put effort into finding it, hearing it, not freely available).
Countries where Censorship have existed or do exist block choice, and therefore, block the freedom of speech in both directions. The US doesn't do this for the most part, so I think we're fine.
Its not quite as difficult as you think to recycle electronic equipment, although there are some difficulties. In Europe, the law around electronic equipment works as follows. The company that produces the equipment is responsible for its care, use, and disposal before the sale and AFTER the consumer is done with it. While the consumer owns it, its their responsiblity. But when the consumer is done with it, it goes back to the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). The OEM then disassembles the equipment, and recycles what it can. If the plastic can be reground and reprocessed, that is done. Glass (where possible) is melted down, all metal components are melted down as well (or reused for the same model or other model electronic equipment. Screws, bolts and brackets for example). Difficult items to recycle include circuit boards (epoxy plastic, metal (some of it toxic), silicon and semiconductors), cathode ray tubes, and sometimes the plastic.
What the European OEMs try to do is reuse what they can and incenerate the rest. If the plastic cannot be reused (off color, decomposed), they'll just burn it up and recycle the energy gained from combustion. However, materials that don't burn (semiconductors, silicon, etc.) are left as slag in the incenerator, and also are concentrated in toxic elements which can leach into ground water. How to deal with this waste is currently a big sticking point for the recyling of electronics waste. There are some refining techniques that one can use to separate out the elements in this inorganic "slag", but, they're quite expensive, and, there currently is no desire/regulations in place to reuse this slag material. Electronic circuit board OEMs and chip OEMs don't want to use material from this slag for fear of contamination may ruin finely tuned electronic properties, which are often affected by minute impurities. Part of the reuse taxes that EU citizens pay goes towards research to solve this issue, and set up an infrastructure to get the whole recyling system to work.
There are systems in place to get this to work, so you just have to give them time to catch up and get fully implimented. It took 10+ years to get PET and HDPE (#1 and #2 plastic) to the level where it was widely implimented and cost effective. Electronics recycling has probably only been going on for 3 years now, so give it time.
I disagree. I think the best Video Game Soundtrack ever was Outlaws. LucasArts had some absolutely awesome music for that game. Then again, like all music, I guess its a matter of taste. It was the Mexican Mariachi music on this game that got me hooked on Salsa and traditional Mexican music. I enjoyed this music because it really did fit with the game. Not available for VGMix.com either, but well worth the low cost of the game and just buying it yourself.
Art has been influenced by technology and vice versa. Lets go back even further in history to look at bronze age metalworking. The creation of bronze led to new weapons, which led to soliders/kings wanting artistic versions of those weapons. Improvements in metalworking (technology) led to new and improved flashy weapons/armor for humans to wear.
Alchemy, the bastard child of chemistry and mysticism it was, borrowed both from technological advances and cultural/religous movements in its developments.
Just as new technology creates new mediums for artwork, current art influences technology. If you look at the appearance of scientific instruments over the past 200 years, you can see the influence of artistic styles of those specific time periods in the instrument itself. Turn of the century analytical balances were wood, brass, gold and glass works of art, with intricate designs making the balance not only functional, but pleasing to the eye. Modern balances, while made of plastic with LCD displays, are also designed to be pleasing to the modern eye, which is a reflection of the artistic styles of today.
So going back to Jon Katz's original quote, and with full support of what you wrote, "Culture is being re-defined right before our eyes. For centuries, art and technology have been considered separate parts of culture." Baloney. Its just as it always has been - art and technology are side by side, intertwined, and continue to be part of our culture just as it always has been.
Whether or not they'll allow these on airplanes depends upon the following:
1. Fire hazard
[Minimized due to the small amount of methanol, and, the fact that its contained in a cartridge. Hard to get at unless you destroy the cartridge]
2. Can it be used as a cigarette lighter?
[If cigarette lighters are allowed on planes now, then they'll allow these as well]
3. Explosion risk
[Possible pressure buildup and spark - however, given small size of methanol cartridge, the risk of explosion is very low, and, even if it did explode, its not likely to be a big explosion]
There may be other issues, but I don't think that will prevent their use on planes. It may be, however, that before you can get on a plane, your fuel cells have to go through a chemical "sniffer" to make sure you're not bringing a cartridge of Sarin gas on board. Or you may have to power up your laptop with it to prove its a fuel cell and not a chemical storage tank.
I think (notice I say "I think") that I am using the correct frame of reference based on what was written in the article. Right now, you can make a normal chip with zero defects. If any current chip designs have a defect, then what happens is the circuit on the chip can't work properly, and its logic functions are basically garbage. For computer companies to make a profit, they currently have to make chips at almost 99%+ effeciency, so that they throw away very few chips per silicon wafer. Given the high cost to produce them, every single chip is highly valuable, and the higher the defect cost, the more espensive it is to produce those same chips. HP would go out of business real quick if they pursued this strategy for mass chip manufacture.
What I'm unsure of, based on the article (and is why I say "I think...") is that this technology is really completely new. If its based on the next logical step (or even two steps ahead) on lithography, then it's not that new an idea, and their defects are actually due to the inability to produce circuits with lines smaller than 100 nm with precision. Not surprising, most other people have a hard time doing this at the moment when using lithography. Now if the technology is truly atomic, such that we're looking at molecular computing, then what they are proposing is indeed completely new technology, and it is an amazing achievement.
That being said, any process that produces unique chips each time cannot guarentee than any one chip will work the same as the others, as the well defined architechture of logic and/or/nor gates needed to get reproducible CPU calculations has been randomized from chip to chip, and therefore, no chip will work the same as its brethren made via the same process which creates these new atomic sized chips/CPUs. At the scales they're talking about, I have a hard time believing they'll be able "customize" each chip to the desired configuration. Basically, they'll have to "fix" each chip after production, which means they'll have to map out each chip and find out what it looks like before they can customize it. That is a HUGE amount of work to do just to get 1 chip out the door and into a working PC or device.
I could be very wrong - but based on what they're promoting in the article, I'm not so sure they're onto something which we can use now, or even 50 years from now.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps this may be modded as redundant, but I'll say it anyway. I read this series when it first came out in Analog this year. I looked forward to each issue that came out and read it rapidly.
What struck me the most about this whole series was the striking differences in our culture and the one developed by the Neanderthal alternate universe culture. Yes, it's fiction, but it did an excellent job pointing out how historical changes can influence generations of culture, beliefs, and technology. For example, the Neanderthals decided to have everyone monitored with personal monitoring devices, so in the event of a crime, there was a 100% chance of proving or disproving who did the crime. The ultimate in police state monitoring, and yet, the entire Neanderthal culture agreed to not abuse this monitoring, and had it set up in such a way that the monitoring would only be accessed during the event of a crime. Privacy wasn't an issue with this culture, so it came as quite a shock to the main Neanderthal when he was transplanted to our universe that we had such issues.
The parallels and contrasts between such two entirely different, and yet very possible cultures that could have happened here on earth make this series well worth reading. I'm looking forward to more work from the author.
In the chemical industry (where I work) here's how patents have gotten out of control and have become an inhibator to innovation, rather than a protector/promoter of innovation.
It starts with patent examiners not being experts in the art. Therefore, what is "obvious to those skilled in the art" who wrote the patent is not obvious to the patent examiner. Therefore, you see patents where claims are made that have no basis in scientific proof because the patent examiner can't find a previous claim which would invalidate the patent claim. The reason for this is that the science behind the bullshit claim does not exist, and therefore, cannot be discovered as prior art.
Here's another abuse of the system. Very often a company will produce a patent with no intention of actually practicing the technology. Instead, they do it to prevent their competitor, (who can make the chemical cheaper with their unique process), from making the chemical for profit. Instead, the non-patent holding company now has to pay a royalty fee to sell the chemical for its original use. So, the company without the patent instead never makes the material, no matter how good it is, because the proposed royalty fees are outrageously expensive.
The patent system is not just broken in the area of software, its also broken in the scientific field. This is why you see corporations trying to patent DNA sequences, natural compounds, basic research, and everything they can to prevent others from using it. I imagine that the practices I listed above are probably also used in the software industry, where a company will issue a patent just to prevent someone else from using a similar piece of code.
Technically (note I say technically) this is the way the system is supposed to work now, and here's the existing loopholes around some of your points, or my commentary on how I would add to what you proposed: (My comments start with -->)
All copyrights must be held by a private individual. No corporate entity may hold a copyright.
-->If you look at the patents now, you can see actual individual names on the patents. However, the company that employed that actual person paid for that work, and they (the corporation) take it as their property in compensation for continued employment/pay. Company X pays person Y to generate Patent Z for Company X. Then company X pays individual Y $1 + salary for Patent Z. Nasty - yes. Legal - sadly yes.
Copyright expires upon the death of the copyright
holder.
--> I would not like to see this. I could imagine a whole underworld business designed to assassinate copyright/patent holders to make their work free for all. Companies with shitty business ethics might kill so they can practice a patent free of charge.
Copyrights cannot be assigned to another entity
-->Currently this can be done (and patents as well) under liscencing. Otherwise - you wouldn't see all the cool Star Wars toys made by Mattel, not-so-cool Episode II Crunch by General Mills, etc. Eliminate liscencing and you're limited to whoever owns the copyright having to promote and pay for all of their own stuff.
Patent
Patents must be held by individuals, not corporate entities
-->See my comments above
Only physical objects and processes may be patented.
-->That's how it is now. If the "process" generates a "virtual object", that's covered as well.
A working implementation of the patented process must be provided (upon request of USPTO)
-->This I agree with completely! Currently, under US Law, you don't have to provide any working example (or proof) that your patent is real. Only novelty of idea. Europe is different where you have to prove novelty AND improvement over existing processes and materials. However, I would amend this to not be upon request, but with every patent. If you can't prove your patent isn't bullshit, you should not be granted a patent.
Naturally occuring results of processes may not be patented (ex: DNA)
-->Technically, chemical reactions are natural reactions, so you just threw out every single chemical process. How would one define what is natural and what is man-made (un-natural)?
The USPTO must conduct a good faith search for any prior art
-->The USPTO does this now for every patent they review. With every patent, in the USPTO is a "binder" which shows the prior art search (some are rather impressive and deep). However, current patent examiners ARE NOT experts in the art, so they don't know how to interpret the prior art correctly, which is why a lot of patents which are garbage get allowed, and some patents which are legit never issue. What the patent office really needs is a body of real experts who review patents for hire. The problem is finding individuals who don't have conflicting interests to review those patents.
-->I fully agree that the current patent system (not just in the US) needs an overhaul, but mostly they just need to enforce the rules as they exist now and get better patent examiners.
Since the IBM experiments (and others done elsewhere) almost always use single wall carbon nanotubes, there are a few issues of practical nature I wonder about with this technology.
One is that single wall nanotubes are oxygen sensitive. Specifically, contact with O2 will cause single site defects in the nanotube structure, thus causing the whole nanotube to lose its electronic properties. It makes me wonder about how they will package these "molecular transistors" such that O2 can't get to it, but the encapsulation of the nanotube doesn't cause it to short out.
Another is that when these things heat up, they do ignite. As we've seen with the light-based ignition shown in Science and here on slashdot, these materials do burn. The above mentioned oxygen reaction sometimes causes the semi-conducting nanotubes to become insulators, thus they heat up, ignite, and disintegrate. So I'm wondering if frying one's nanotube-based chip would be more than just a figurative term if this happened.
Finally, there is the fabrication issue. I know that in the near future, one can make kilotons of nanotubes, and probably even kilograms of single wall nanotubes today (maybe 2kg a year, but you don't need that much if you only need 1 nanotube), but how are you going to fabricate them into architechures onto chips with existing chip fabrication technology?
Maybe IBM has all this worked out. I do have to remember that what they've published today is what they already have covered in patents and what they've been working on already for several months to one year. They don't publish unless they've got more going on AND if they already have the technology protected.
Actually, carbon nanotubes can be mass produced - depending on what your scale of "mass production" is. If you only need 1 carbon nanotube per transistor, you can get a HUGE amount of nanotubes from 1 kg of material.
Compaies like this one (www.cnanotech.com), [Run by Richard Smalley, who co-discovered Fullerenes] are working to mass production (sub kiloton) of carbon nanotubes. Maybe not single-wall nanotubes, buth they're getting there.
Yes, I agree with you that slimy and shady practices have been around since the dawn of time - it's sadly in human nature. As for the comment you're either a moral person by 30 or not, I disagree. People can be reformed, but I will admit it does get harder as one goes on in age. So in that light, I would agree that teaching it in High School or sooner is a very good idea. Ideally that is what Religion and parents are supposed to help address, but earlier (pre-college) education can certainly help. Civics and government classes really don't cover this subject very well (at least not the ones I took and the ones my friends and relations took)
That being said, military strategy and Machiavelli ARE being taught in business school, but not at the MBA level. Its taught to business executives at much higher end business school refresher courses. So the exec comes out with these ideas and if he or she decides to apply them, then those beneath them follow the example, realizing they need to do this to stay employed. If, however, enough of them had a strong enough sense of ethics to say no, then you might, just might, be able to put a check and balance system on the execs. That however, I doubt will happen, so I stand by my comments that additional ethics need to be taught, and this strategic/Machivellian stuff dumped. Your insight that this behavior has always existed, and that it should also be taught at earlier ages is also right on, but I still think that additional exposure can certainly help.
Interestingly, these ideas are already being tackled. You can get an idea of how the workload is being broken up by reading an article on Low Tech Improving the 3rd World (Wired, April 2002, pages 108-115)
The way it would work is that you figure out what all resources a project needs, then you break it down into appropriate parts. If you read the article you'll see what I mean. One example is a simple water pump - and they broke up the workload (some of it donated on other people's off time) by dividing it into materials, engineering, and distribution. Each member handled their own part until it was done.
For this proposed project, you'll probably sign up by listing your areas of expertise (like a resume), and then when a project is proposed, you search through the skill sets until you find what you need, and then you assign that particular person to "Think" on that part of the problem and then report in when they're done. Its not really that different than working in a team. Now your team may truly be distributed among the world.
At least, that's how I think it could be done.
Its an interesting point - the blurred line between commercial art and "museum quality" art. You even have artists and commerical artists, those who paint and sculpt, and those who paint and sculpt for a specific product.
Let's take Coca-Cola's logo for example. Some people collect the logos as they change throughout the years as it reflects tastes of the times, some do it because its a favorite product. Some call it art, or Americana, or Kitch Culture, or commercial advertising and not art. I'm inclined to follow the phrase "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", and along that line, art is anything that it takes creative inspiration to create. Along that line, everyone has their own definition of what is art and what isn't. Now that I think about it, its all a matter of personal opinion.
Its things like this that make me think a whole overhaul of business schools and other institutions of higher learning is needed. I think things like this have always gone on, but they seem a lot more nasty and prevalent now.
All this crap probably started when Business schools starting using military strategy and Machiavellian philosopy as the ultimate way to win a war with business competition. So in the light of the "ends justify the means", now we have business practices by those who only want their company to win, and they don't care how they do it. Hence my comment about ethics. What goes around comes around, and eventually the entire business world is even more backstabbing and evil than it was before. If its taught in school that this behavior leads to this damage in the system, or the students experience it first hand, perhaps things like this would not happen any more.
All that being said, I'm glad to see that the Law in place to prevent this un-ethical behavior has been used as it was meant to, to stop this sort of unethical behavior. I'd still rather see the solution to the problem be stopping the problem before it occurs, rather than correcting the behavior after the action has been done.
I think this presentation is an outstanding idea. When I think about the number of computer game background scenes I have seen in games, there are many that have a beauty to them. Laugh if you will, but occasionally I'll stop in gameplay to just look around and enjoy the scenery. I remember a particullarly "Unreal" (sorry for the pun) experience when I first got a 3D card that came with Unreal. I stopped shortly after the 1st level when I came out into the outside area, and just stopped and panned around enjoying the scenery of the waterfall and the birds flying overhead.
The whole MYST series is a perfect example of this, especially with the improved Graphics and 3D views of MYST III: Exile. Its like a painting of a landscape or natural scene, except what is presented is un-natural, but still enjoyable to look at and behold.
Art, and what is appreciated as art, can show up in just about any medium, from canvas to sculpture and now an electronic/virtual medium.
Today's EULAs are indeed difficult to read and many of the terms often make me regret I bought the software - but I'm in a catch 22 here. To read the EULA I have to open the box, thus preventing me from returning the software box (thanks to those "we won't accept opened software" clauses at so many stores). So I'm now stuck with a $50 software purchase and so I can at least claim some of my $50 worth, I'll usually agree to the EULA just so I can install it and recoup my losses.
Right now they list system requirments on the box, so I think they should have an abbreviated version of the EULA on the box so you know what you're getting into (no resale clause, one copy per computer clause regardless of household, etc.) before you purchase.
Realizing that what I've proposed is difficult to implement and probably impractical, I still think if put in place you'd see how fast friendly EULAs sell the product, and those with restrictive EULAs get heavily pirated and/or not sold off the shelves. Also, I'd think open-source material would sell rather well due to the nice EULA agreement.
Just my two cents anyway.
Thanks for pointing that out. Hmmm...I think the researchers are incorrect in saying that there is oxygen inside the tubes, its really too small a cavity to hold enough oxygen to be meaningful in this reaction. Outside the tubes however...well..there may be other things going on.
However, I missed the part about them trying it in the absence of oxygen. The change of the shape suggests that my idea about bond strain is not so far off. Since oxygen isn't present when the bonds break, the tubes cannot combust/explode. Instead the bonds break and rearrange to move to structures with less bond strain. Still very interesting results either way.
I don't remember the article saying that there was a slow burn of the material - more of a rapid ignition and pop. There may have been a slow combustion as you describe, but the rapid ignition, and forceful release of the air in the flask described sounds more like an explosion rather than slow combustion. I'd have to observe the phenomena myself to determine if its a classical "explosion" or simply carbon "burning".
As for oxygen in the carbon nanotube interior - there is no oxygen in the interior, as these were described as closed (capped) carbon nanotubes, which are formed under inert (non-oxygen) atmospheres. Almost all nanotubes to date have been "empty", in that no other molecules are present in them after formation. As with all things in chemistry, there are exceptions, but I'm quite sure that these materials were empty. Therefore, oxygen would have been involved in the oxidative degradation (burning) on the outside of the tubes, not the inside. Even if they were filled, the amount of anything inside the tube would have been picoliters (1.0x10-12) of material, not enough to force an audible "pop". The diameter of a carbon nanotube is quite small (50 nm I think, depending on the carbon nanotube geometry).
Your comment makes me wonder if the materials would have rapidly decomposed if kept under nitrogen or argon, rather than air, in the flask.
I guess I'll just have to wait until the full article comes out to get more answers to my questions.
After reading the article, there is still a lot of questions regarding the mechanism of nanotube degradation.
One question that comes to mind is the wavelength of the light produced by the flash. Some materials are stable to some wavelengths, but fall apart under others. The wavelength of that light may have been just right to exite the electrons in the bonds of the nanotube and cause them to break.
I think we need to look at the structure of the nanotube itself. The single-wall nanotubes have a huge amount of bond strain, and therefore, are somewhat unstable already. What lends support to the heat dissipation arguement is the structure similiarity between the carbon nanotubes (high strain) and graphite (low-strain). Graphite and carbon nanotubes both conduct electricity well, but both are thermal insulators. Graphite however, has no bond strain or instablity, and glows upon heating (releasing the excess energy as light). What I think happens with the single wall nanotubes is not just heat dissipation.
Since the nanotubes have a lot of bond strain due to their structure, they have a lot of energy built into the structure. However, those strained bonds can be easily broken by putting in enough energy to break them. Once the bonds break, they release bond strain, and therefore, the energy built into the structure. So, its not just heat dissipation, I think what we're seeing here is that intense light is powerful enough to break the bonds in the carbon nanotube, and once that happens, the bond strain energy is released catastrophically, thus causing the explosion/ignition. So each nanotube explodes at the same time, not one leading to another.
All that being said, this may be the first example of a light-detonated organic chemical degradation. Most are heat generate or shock generated (kinetic energy). Light is almost unheard of. Very interesting result.
While I enjoyed this Periodic table, I found this one to be much better:
t ml
http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/periodictable.h
If you don't cringe after reading Arsenic, there is something really wrong with you.
"9/11" is merely a modern version of:
"Remember the Alamo"
"Remember the Maine"
"Buy War Bonds"
"Loose Lips Sink Ships"
"Defeat the Hun"
"The Crusade in Europe"
"The Evil Empire"
Each major even which has spurred the US to War has had some slogan or phrase attached to it which reminds us why we're fighting. Given how modern society is big into abbreviations, I don't view the moniker "9/11" or "911" as a trivialization, merely our society's personal mnemomic reminding us what happened on September 11th, 2001, and why we're doing the things we're doing, or at least why our government is doing what its doing. Its not a reflection of pop culture, but it is a reflection of current US culture.
Mr. Katz has it all wrong. IT is not going to be the area of tech that will boom post 9/11 as we go into a much different type of war, a war of cloak and dagger and targeted, precise military actions. The fields of tech that will undergo booms in funding will not be IT, or computers, it will be Chemistry, Physics, Aerospace engineering, and Biotech.
Biotech will get the most - designed to come up with biowarfare countermeasures (better Anti-biotics for Anthrax, better vaccienes (sp?))
Physics will get the next most for new weapons, counter measures, and the ever famous missle defense shield. Think applied physics in the areas of superconductors and photonics for ground and air-based chemical lasers.
Aerospace engineering will get quite a bit from the govt. to develop better unmanned drones, superior targeting equipment, and replacing all the bombs getting dropped in Afghanistan and maybe Iraq later.
Chemistry will get the last batch of major funding, for new explosives (Thermobaric bombs were a combination of applied physics and new explosive chemistry), chemical detection equipment (analytical chemistry, micro-sensors for detecting micromoles of chem warfare/neurotoxin agents), and chemical support for the applied phyics field listed above. Probably even new polymeric materials for aerospace applications.
There will indeed be another tech boom, but its not going to be in IT. Given the enemies of the US in this war on terrorists, IT is useful in getting intelligence on the enemy, but its going to be the ground forces and new weapons that take them out, not an improved IT solution or technology. Unless that IT allows one to fly an unmanned drone better, its not going to get much more funding than it already gets.
I think part of the reason why Ron Howard got best Director for "A Beautiful Mind" was that he filmed the movie in chronological sequence. To be more specific, most directors shoot a movie out of sequence - one scene from the end of the movie one month, another scene from the beginning after that, another one from the middle after that, and so on, finally editing the whole thing at the end from scenes all shot out of sequence. Ron Howard shot the whole movie in order. He started at the beginning and worked his way to the end. The commentary was that this has never been done before, at least not sucessfully.
All that being said, I think LOTR and Peter Jackson should have won best movie and best director, but I think Ron Howard's chronological shooting sequence, and his several previous nominations, probably helped him clinch the voting this year.
We actually have a pretty nice remote PC setup here at where I work.
The way it is setup is that the company standarized ALL of its PCs and laptops. So first off, everyone has the exact same "workstation", same processor, same RAM, hardware, etc. Then we have the exact same basic software installed on every single machine (MS Windows, Office, Anti-virus, etc.) Therefore, when we download or connect to our workstation accounts, we don't have to download the application software as well. Everyone's personal account files (work related files, email, etc.) then reside not on the PC in their office, but on a remote drive than can be accessed anywhere in the company's network - worldwide. The way its set up now is that I can leave my Michigan office, fly down to Texas, go to a company PC there, log in with my user ID and password, and bring up all of my email and working documents and work there. When I'm done, I save everything, shut it down, and then I can access it again at another PC somewhere else. We have people here to access their files from around the world, as they travel to all of the company's locations across the world.
Unfortunately, I can't comment on the server software we use that allows all of this, as I'm merely a user of the sytem, rather than an administrator. However, in the time I've been using it, it works VERY well, preventing downtime if your PC in your office goes down.
Now the system does have its problems. If the server which handles your personal account is down, you can't access any of your files or email. If a network connection is down or slow, same problem. I usually make backups of very important files on my office PC so that if the network crashes, I can still work.
Now that I've described what we have, it makes me think that what I've described is more of a LAN or company-wide network accessable system, rather than internet based, accessable by any dial-up or other connection. However, it does work, allowing all of us here to use just about any computer anywhere on the company network.
Perhaps free speech is more of a choice issue. You have the choice to listen to an idea or ideas (speech), or to broadcast/speak your ideas to others. However, the listener or speaker does not have the freedom to make you listen or prevent you from listening to one or more specific sets of ideas.
Therefore, it would be censorship of free speech if an outside source prevented you from listening to an idea. It would not be censorship if you set your computer to block out ideas you personally found offensive and did not want to hear about. Provided the citizen has the freedom of choice to speak (or not speak) his or her particular ideas, without forcing others to listen to it, I don't think censorship is an issue. As long as freedom of choice is there, I think all is well.
There is of course, an exception to this, in that if the freedom of speech exposes one to unnecessary danger or can endanger others, then perhaps it should be censored. This is where I think most of the arguements over censorship occur, as one person's censored material is another person's prized free speech. Pornography is one example. Racist speech is another. Some of us want it, and others don't. One side says its harmful, the other claims its their right to tell dissenting views. Ultimately, its up to the majority to decide what should freely open (dissent and agreement) and what should be either censored or relegated to fringe (you have to put effort into finding it, hearing it, not freely available).
Countries where Censorship have existed or do exist block choice, and therefore, block the freedom of speech in both directions. The US doesn't do this for the most part, so I think we're fine.
Its not quite as difficult as you think to recycle electronic equipment, although there are some difficulties.
In Europe, the law around electronic equipment works as follows. The company that produces the equipment is responsible for its care, use, and disposal before the sale and AFTER the consumer is done with it. While the consumer owns it, its their responsiblity. But when the consumer is done with it, it goes back to the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). The OEM then disassembles the equipment, and recycles what it can. If the plastic can be reground and reprocessed, that is done. Glass (where possible) is melted down, all metal components are melted down as well (or reused for the same model or other model electronic equipment. Screws, bolts and brackets for example). Difficult items to recycle include circuit boards (epoxy plastic, metal (some of it toxic), silicon and semiconductors), cathode ray tubes, and sometimes the plastic.
What the European OEMs try to do is reuse what they can and incenerate the rest. If the plastic cannot be reused (off color, decomposed), they'll just burn it up and recycle the energy gained from combustion. However, materials that don't burn (semiconductors, silicon, etc.) are left as slag in the incenerator, and also are concentrated in toxic elements which can leach into ground water. How to deal with this waste is currently a big sticking point for the recyling of electronics waste. There are some refining techniques that one can use to separate out the elements in this inorganic "slag", but, they're quite expensive, and, there currently is no desire/regulations in place to reuse this slag material. Electronic circuit board OEMs and chip OEMs don't want to use material from this slag for fear of contamination may ruin finely tuned electronic properties, which are often affected by minute impurities. Part of the reuse taxes that EU citizens pay goes towards research to solve this issue, and set up an infrastructure to get the whole recyling system to work.
There are systems in place to get this to work, so you just have to give them time to catch up and get fully implimented. It took 10+ years to get PET and HDPE (#1 and #2 plastic) to the level where it was widely implimented and cost effective. Electronics recycling has probably only been going on for 3 years now, so give it time.
I disagree. I think the best Video Game Soundtrack ever was Outlaws. LucasArts had some absolutely awesome music for that game. Then again, like all music, I guess its a matter of taste. It was the Mexican Mariachi music on this game that got me hooked on Salsa and traditional Mexican music. I enjoyed this music because it really did fit with the game. Not available for VGMix.com either, but well worth the low cost of the game and just buying it yourself.
Big time Baloney indeed.
Art has been influenced by technology and vice versa. Lets go back even further in history to look at bronze age metalworking. The creation of bronze led to new weapons, which led to soliders/kings wanting artistic versions of those weapons. Improvements in metalworking (technology) led to new and improved flashy weapons/armor for humans to wear.
Alchemy, the bastard child of chemistry and mysticism it was, borrowed both from technological advances and cultural/religous movements in its developments.
Just as new technology creates new mediums for artwork, current art influences technology. If you look at the appearance of scientific instruments over the past 200 years, you can see the influence of artistic styles of those specific time periods in the instrument itself. Turn of the century analytical balances were wood, brass, gold and glass works of art, with intricate designs making the balance not only functional, but pleasing to the eye. Modern balances, while made of plastic with LCD displays, are also designed to be pleasing to the modern eye, which is a reflection of the artistic styles of today.
So going back to Jon Katz's original quote, and with full support of what you wrote, "Culture is being re-defined right before our eyes. For centuries, art and technology have been considered separate parts of culture." Baloney. Its just as it always has been - art and technology are side by side, intertwined, and continue to be part of our culture just as it always has been.
Whether or not they'll allow these on airplanes depends upon the following:
1. Fire hazard
[Minimized due to the small amount of methanol, and, the fact that its contained in a cartridge. Hard to get at unless you destroy the cartridge]
2. Can it be used as a cigarette lighter?
[If cigarette lighters are allowed on planes now, then they'll allow these as well]
3. Explosion risk
[Possible pressure buildup and spark - however, given small size of methanol cartridge, the risk of explosion is very low, and, even if it did explode, its not likely to be a big explosion]
There may be other issues, but I don't think that will prevent their use on planes. It may be, however, that before you can get on a plane, your fuel cells have to go through a chemical "sniffer" to make sure you're not bringing a cartridge of Sarin gas on board. Or you may have to power up your laptop with it to prove its a fuel cell and not a chemical storage tank.
I think (notice I say "I think") that I am using the correct frame of reference based on what was written in the article. Right now, you can make a normal chip with zero defects. If any current chip designs have a defect, then what happens is the circuit on the chip can't work properly, and its logic functions are basically garbage. For computer companies to make a profit, they currently have to make chips at almost 99%+ effeciency, so that they throw away very few chips per silicon wafer. Given the high cost to produce them, every single chip is highly valuable, and the higher the defect cost, the more espensive it is to produce those same chips. HP would go out of business real quick if they pursued this strategy for mass chip manufacture.
What I'm unsure of, based on the article (and is why I say "I think...") is that this technology is really completely new. If its based on the next logical step (or even two steps ahead) on lithography, then it's not that new an idea, and their defects are actually due to the inability to produce circuits with lines smaller than 100 nm with precision. Not surprising, most other people have a hard time doing this at the moment when using lithography. Now if the technology is truly atomic, such that we're looking at molecular computing, then what they are proposing is indeed completely new technology, and it is an amazing achievement.
That being said, any process that produces unique chips each time cannot guarentee than any one chip will work the same as the others, as the well defined architechture of logic and/or/nor gates needed to get reproducible CPU calculations has been randomized from chip to chip, and therefore, no chip will work the same as its brethren made via the same process which creates these new atomic sized chips/CPUs. At the scales they're talking about, I have a hard time believing they'll be able "customize" each chip to the desired configuration. Basically, they'll have to "fix" each chip after production, which means they'll have to map out each chip and find out what it looks like before they can customize it. That is a HUGE amount of work to do just to get 1 chip out the door and into a working PC or device.
I could be very wrong - but based on what they're promoting in the article, I'm not so sure they're onto something which we can use now, or even 50 years from now.