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WE ARE FLOODED WITH DATA, a phenomenon called information overload (Tofler). Data is just unorganized information. Data, when organized, becomes information. Actionable, not just a heap of ones and zeros. Or piles of observations in any units. Until it is organized into actionable and understandable groupings it is worthless. In recent years have excelled at generating massive amounts of data. Organizing data overload into useful information is the challenge of the next epoch. View in LinkedIn

IS INFORMATION MORE PRIMARY THAN MATTER ITSELF? If information is orderly stored data, and if data is just a unit of anything (1 or 0, ATCG, or practically any unit), then most of the physical universe is orderly stored data; the vast majority of physical things and physical materials have clear structure, and mathematical order. Some materials will be stable (most disordered) and others less stable (more structured). It is possible that only the more unstable ordered materials can be coaxed into releasing energy as work, or are programmable materials. View in LinkedIn

IS ENTROPY KEY to programmable materials? As the universe cools and all inanimate things go to the lowest energy state, the least complexity, highest disorder, and they loose the ability to release energy (do work). Life forms in contrast, create higher order and complexity, and oppose the inanimate decay of order in the universe. Can only those materials with sufficient stored order, or entropy, be useful for programmable materials? View in LinkedIn

REALITY AS INFORMATION? SYNTROPY? "Is everything information? This seductive idea animates the brand-new book 'The Information' by James Gleick (Pantheon 2011). A growing number of scientists, Gleick writes, are beginning to wonder whether information "may be primary: more fundamental than matter itself." But the everything-is-information meme violates common sense." Does it?" " http://lnkd.in/d9j4pCE View in LinkedIn

RADICAL PROGRAMMABLE ATOMS from the brilliant MIT Media Lab team. Grasp this gargleblaster: a vision of the future for human-material interactions where all programmable information has an interactive physical manifestation. Enjoy. " " http://lnkd.in/dDVCwAvhttp://lnkd.in/dBXRxAE View in LinkedIn

IS THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE AN IT SYSTEM? "An Information System is a coherent collection of data that can be stored, processed, and retrieved, to supply useful content to human beings."" " http://lnkd.in/dHxrJwB View in LinkedIn

"DATA is a collection of facts, such as values or measurements. It can be numbers, words, measurements, observations or even just descriptions of things." It can be quantitative or qualitative, and discrete or continuous if quantitative." " http://lnkd.in/d-RG-eF View in LinkedIn

"INFORMATION, in its most restricted technical sense, is a sequence of symbols that can be interpreted as a message. Information can be recorded as signs, or transmitted as signals. Information is any kind of event that affects the state of a dynamic system that can interpret the information."" " http://lnkd.in/dYVFy5b View in LinkedIn

PROGRAMMABLE MATTER: The physical manifestation of information? At least some of the physical inanimate universe contains enough information (whatever that is) to be compelled by an organizing code to do future orderly work. Programmable materials (or smart materials), at least today, are a subset of all materials in the universe. They are electronically configured in such a way that they have physical plasticity. View in LinkedIn

DARPA GOAL FOR PROGRAMMABLE MATERIAL. "A material that can perform several operations in sequence: upon activation by an external signal, decode and propagate instructions; translate information into action, transport particles and" "assemble shapes; interlock particles to form an object; perform error-checking and encode final state information, again activated by external signal; and disassemble into the starting material." (Tall order but some early Milestones already met). " " http://lnkd.in/dDqaiS9 View in LinkedIn