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01-21-2009, 09:31 PM
http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/TBCS_Group/xcom/Banners/smart_dust/smart_dust.png
Smart Dust (or Motes) were first conceptualized by Kris Pister and Randy H. Katz as an autonomous sensing and communication system working within the confines of a cubic millimeter.
How Dust Works
Smart dust is based on micro-electromechanical systems, or MEMS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEMS). These tiny computer chips can measure temperatures, vibrations or surface pressures. Smart sensors then relay signals wirelessly back to a command computer. These motes are about the size of a grain of rice.
http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/9487/pennyiy0.jpg
As a virtual keyboard
"Glue a dust mote on each of your fingernails. Accelerometers will sense the orientation and motion of each of your fingertips, and talk to the computer in your watch," Pister explaines. "Can you can imagine much more useful and creative ways to interface to your computer if it knows where your fingers are? You can sculpt 3D shapes in virtual clay, play the piano, gesture in sign language and have to computer translate all of it."
Combined with a MEMS augmented-reality heads up display, your entire computer I/O would be invisible to the people around you. Couple that with wireless access and you need never be bored in a meeting again! Surf the web while the boss rambles on and on. Finally, something I can use!
Smart Help When Parking
Dust Networks customer Streetline Inc. has designed smart parking systems for the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles. The firm embeds sensors right onto the surfaces of parking spaces. Drivers with passwords can activate a dashboard system to find the nearest open parking spot. Traffic managers can use it to monitor, and thus improve, traffic flows and to boost revenue from parking meters by, for example, letting the managers know when a meter has expired.
In city life
Tiny specs of computer smart dust will form millions of networks all talking to a central hub. Cities will add smart dust to everything. It will be mixed into sod in your lawn and concrete in skyscrapers constantly reporting data about their surroundings. It sounds like a big brother scheme, when in fact, it could be extremely accurate weather reporting.
On the street
Smart dust on the road will be able to warn your car about pot holes and report those pot holes to city management to be repaired. When added to a bridge it will warn of stress fractures and how busy traffic really is.
At work
Smart dust at your office building will know that you’ve arrived at work and boot your computer up in preparation of your arrival. The elevator on the way up will even know who you are and let you out on your floor.
Smart dust will be everywhere. Essentially everything will be a computer. What we know today as computers will be something entirely different. Personally, I feel that desktops will always be the same, as there will always be a need to build your own, but notebooks and netbooks will constantly be changing and blurring the line between cell phones and portable computers. It’s all a matter of when it will happen, but for us at TBCS, sooner is always better than later.
Article by TheGreatSatan
Artwork by XcOM
Smart Dust (or Motes) were first conceptualized by Kris Pister and Randy H. Katz as an autonomous sensing and communication system working within the confines of a cubic millimeter.
How Dust Works
Smart dust is based on micro-electromechanical systems, or MEMS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEMS). These tiny computer chips can measure temperatures, vibrations or surface pressures. Smart sensors then relay signals wirelessly back to a command computer. These motes are about the size of a grain of rice.
http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/9487/pennyiy0.jpg
As a virtual keyboard
"Glue a dust mote on each of your fingernails. Accelerometers will sense the orientation and motion of each of your fingertips, and talk to the computer in your watch," Pister explaines. "Can you can imagine much more useful and creative ways to interface to your computer if it knows where your fingers are? You can sculpt 3D shapes in virtual clay, play the piano, gesture in sign language and have to computer translate all of it."
Combined with a MEMS augmented-reality heads up display, your entire computer I/O would be invisible to the people around you. Couple that with wireless access and you need never be bored in a meeting again! Surf the web while the boss rambles on and on. Finally, something I can use!
Smart Help When Parking
Dust Networks customer Streetline Inc. has designed smart parking systems for the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles. The firm embeds sensors right onto the surfaces of parking spaces. Drivers with passwords can activate a dashboard system to find the nearest open parking spot. Traffic managers can use it to monitor, and thus improve, traffic flows and to boost revenue from parking meters by, for example, letting the managers know when a meter has expired.
In city life
Tiny specs of computer smart dust will form millions of networks all talking to a central hub. Cities will add smart dust to everything. It will be mixed into sod in your lawn and concrete in skyscrapers constantly reporting data about their surroundings. It sounds like a big brother scheme, when in fact, it could be extremely accurate weather reporting.
On the street
Smart dust on the road will be able to warn your car about pot holes and report those pot holes to city management to be repaired. When added to a bridge it will warn of stress fractures and how busy traffic really is.
At work
Smart dust at your office building will know that you’ve arrived at work and boot your computer up in preparation of your arrival. The elevator on the way up will even know who you are and let you out on your floor.
Smart dust will be everywhere. Essentially everything will be a computer. What we know today as computers will be something entirely different. Personally, I feel that desktops will always be the same, as there will always be a need to build your own, but notebooks and netbooks will constantly be changing and blurring the line between cell phones and portable computers. It’s all a matter of when it will happen, but for us at TBCS, sooner is always better than later.
Article by TheGreatSatan
Artwork by XcOM