Category: Uncategorized

PHOTONIC CRYSTALS have featured often in this blog a lot, responsible for coloration of iridescent beetles, butterfly wings, peacock feathers, and used by algae as well as chameleons for UV protection. All appear to have ingeniously evolved uniquely and separately. View in LinkedIn

WAR FOR SHELF SPACE. "Data leads to data led decisions. In the later case – whether those hands are governmental or corporate – we could end up in the middle of a smart dust war, where competing networks battle for ground – in the air around you, even on your skin. We stand at the edge of another paradigm shift in computing, which like the smart phone, and the desktop computer before that, will drive social change." https://lnkd.in/dxQi7Ww View in LinkedIn

CRYSTAL COLORS. "The discovery that iridophore color arose structurally was made in stages. Early workers noted that iridophores contained birefringent bundles of crystalline material arranged in species-specific patterns. With few exceptions, the iridophore crystals from all organisms studied have been purines, predominantly guanine." https://lnkd.in/evvfbKA View in LinkedIn

HACKING. "What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Help, My Chair Has a Virus! Hackers could turn your programmable matter against you." https://lnkd.in/dzmMmjE View in LinkedIn

COMPLEX CONTROL. "Varying the degree of dispersion of the melanosomes blocks reflectance of the iridophores but not the xanthophores or erythrophores, so the skin appears yellow-red. Color change may also occur because of changes in the spacing of platelets within the iridophores, a phenomenon that has been demonstrated in fish." https://lnkd.in/eR5ehsm View in LinkedIn

UBIQUITOUS MONITORING. "But the ubiquity of smart dust- the instant availability of computing power and the blanket sensor coverage – means that this technological change will drive social change. The diffusion of computing into the environment will mean not just that computing power is always available, but that this computing power will drive ubiquitous monitoring and surveillance." https://lnkd.in/dxQi7Ww View in LinkedIn

UBIQUITOUS PRESENCE. "The next generation of computers will be able to carry out complex calculations but will be little bigger than a snowflake. The plan is for such sensor-packed machines to be embedded in buildings and objects in their hundreds or even thousands, providing constant updates on the world around us." https://lnkd.in/eJg-jHE View in LinkedIn

MICRO-DRONES. "Termed “smart dust,” these miniature versions of our contemporary drones are only a generation or two or three away from realization. In fact, they have been in development at DARPA for over twenty years. As originally envisioned by the geniuses at RAND, smart dust will eventually be a combination of “microeletromechanical” systems or MEMS." http://www.theascender.org/power-smart-dust/ View in LinkedIn

MILITARY AND SMART DUST. "Apparently, DARPA and the Rand Corporation have been working on smart dust since the early 1990s (as you would expect), and smart dust has made it to Gartner's Hype Cycle For Emerging Technology." https://lnkd.in/eSBshT3 View in LinkedIn

SMART DUST is a major goal of intensive research in academia and industry. Proponents cite the many practice applications and problems that may be possible to solve with this technology. But much less is said about the dark side. The military has long been interested in the topic, along with robotics. View in LinkedIn