From: Matthew Gaylor (freematt@coil.com)
Date: Thu Oct 07 1999 - 09:51:22 MDT
The Nano-promise?
"Wish, And It WILL BE So!" That could conceivably be an end-game of
today's nascent nanotechnology research, if Mitre's James
Ellenbogen's vision comes to pass. Working on Mitre's
nanotechnology program, Ellenbogen believes that within 20 years we
may have "desktop manufacturing" devices that will let us download
descriptions and instructions for physical devices -- and the
"nanobox" will then "make it so."
According to Ellenbogen in the Aug. 30 BusinessWeek
(http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_35/b3644001.htm - choose Item
#4, "Nanotech," on the left-hand menu), brought to our attention by
RCFoC reader Ken Berntsen,
"...the grand slam in the matter-is-software ballpark will be
the nanobox. This is a sort of futuristic copy machine that
combines nanotech fabrication with today's so-called
desktop-manufacturing methods, used mainly to knock out quick
prototypes of new products. If you want a new cell phone, you'll
purchase a recipe on the Net. It will tell you to insert a sheet
of plastic and squirt electrically conductive molecules into the
''toner'' cartridge. The nanobox will pass the plastic back and
forth, laying down patterns of molecules, then electrically
direct them to assemble themselves into circuits and an antenna.
Next, using different ''toners,'' the nanobox will add a keypad,
speaker, and microphone and finally build up a housing."
OK, I know this sounds like the best of science fiction, but
Congress thinks enough of the concept to want to double the current
$232 million appropriation for nanotech research. And the White
House considers nanotechnology research to be in its top 11 critical
research areas.
Now just imagine -- IF -- this were to come to pass, what it would
do to our traditional physical goods economy. And while I'm not
saying, at this point, that each of us will soon be able to print
our own cell phones and other goodies, remember how "impossible" 650
MHz PCs, and $250 photo-realistic inkjet printers, and the expensive
stereolithography devices which DO create prototype physical parts
out of "nothing" today, seemed twenty years ago.
It's seems that it's only "the impossible," that's impossible...
###
The Rapidly Changing Face of Computing
Oct. 4, 1999
Death Is No Longer An Excuse!
-----------------------------
by Jeffrey R. Harrow
Senior Consulting Engineer
Technology & Corporate Development,
Compaq Computer Corporation
jeff.harrow@compaq.com
Insight, analysis and commentary on the innovations and trends
of contemporary computing, and on the technologies that drive them
(not necessarily the views of Compaq Computer Corporation).
http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc
ISSN: 1520-8117
Copyright (c)1999, Compaq Computer Corporation
Search across all issues! (info)
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