Carnegie Mellon University and Intel’s lab in Pittsburgh have been teaming up over the last few years to work on Programmable Matter (known more commonly as Claytronics). The idea here is to create a technology that can shift it’s physical form and density to produce a mass of very small computers that can form a variety of shapes as directed by the user. The example I keep running across as I look further into these is a smartphone that goes down to it’s smallest possible size for storage (either in the ear or a pocket). Then once the user wants to make a call it reforms itself to become a more common sized and usable phone. Then if the user wants to use the internet or e-mail the device could reform once again to become a netbook. Another idea that I saw in a video that is less technologically complicated is a recliner that becomes a chaise lounge when desired.

Right now development looks to be at a stage where the team has cylinders around 2 inches in diameter and looks like 3 – 4 inches in length. They are controlled through a wire not wirelessly as would be desired, but the hardware they do have is still an interesting display of concept. These devices are patched full of magnets needed to keep the units together and the associated circuitry to take commands from the team’s input device. The team has several papers and video’s on there website that shows rather impressive development in the hardware aspect of this technology.

Being the software geek that I am the part of this that I see as really cool is that the software guys on the team have developed proprietary languages to control the movement of the catoms (claytronic atoms, witty ha?). The team has displayed the ability to make drastic transformations in shape with jut a few pages of code. Meld is the language that they have created to control the large scale movement of a network of catoms. According to the team page a user can do in one page of Meld what would take 20 to 30 pages of C++ by allowing the user to concentrate on the global level change in the network and not have to hand code the commands for each individual catom. LDP (Locally Distributed Predicates) is another language that they developed this one aimed more at pattern matching and other more specific things giving the programmer more control over what the catom’s do or look like once they reach the shape that they have been instructed. The couch example probably could be done solely with Meld while the smartphone one would certainly require LDP to make sure that the brains of the device stayed together.

This really has some neat possibilities. I highly recommend the videos on the Carnegie Mellon website (especially the one on their homepage) because they show some very awesome possibilities. The development timeline the I keep finding is to have a marketable product in three to five years, I think that’s a rather optimistic timeline but I will be watching the developments for sure.

Links:

Carnegie Mellon’s website dedicated to Claytronics

Very cool Claytronics concept video

Carnegie Mellon, catom, claytronics, Intel, programmable matter Hide

How ironic it is that Amazon would exercise their Big Brother like control over Kindle devices with George Orwell’s 1984. Apparently the publisher of the E-Book (MobileReference) decided that it didn’t want to publish Orwell’s “1984″ or “Animal Farm” anymore, and Amazon pulled the book from their Kindle store. This is all well and good. Publishers have rights regarding what they sell and Amazon really has no option but to abide by what publishers say, but where this really becomes scary is what amazon did after pulling the E-Books from the store.

During the night of July 16 Amazon electronically and without warning deleted all copies of both E-Books from all Kindle devices connected over Amazon’s Whispernet system. Amazon credited the accounts of the customers that had the book removed from their device, so this is an apparently legal action, but this brings up all kinds of questions about customer rights and what the future of the service might be.

The first major point is that Amazon’s advertising for E-Books talks about customers “buying” the novels, but if Amazon can pull the E-Book from your device at will are you really buying it or just renting it long term for a one time fee. Also if you “bought” 1984 through the Kindle store, therefore owning a licensed copy of the E-Book, and you chose to backup your device on your computer, do you own that backup copy or since you have been refunded for your purchase are your morally and legally required to delete that backup copy. Also is there going to be any kind of attempt to make sure that these backup copies are deleted.

Another much scarier idea of the potential of this newly shown ability that Amazon has over your Kindle is what happens is you purchase an edgy book and it, or parts of it, becomes banned (something that many countries have a history of). Will Amazon come into your device and delete it or replace it with a censored version without prior notification. And a case that fits even better into the Big Brother themes for 1984 what happens if Amazon does this replacement and never tells the customer that this has happened or that the edition of the book they are reading is any different from the original.

One might like to believe that in these modern times the ugly cloud of censorship has long passed, and the long warned of existence of Big Brother will be prevented by our publicly elected government and a citizenship that won’t stand for that kind of control, but as recently as 2005 the Department of Justice started the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force to surf theinternet and protect us from seeing anything that doesn’t pass the Supreme Court’s obscenity test, even if they acts portrayed are completely legal (as shown by the arrest and incarceration of Extreme Associates in 2009). I really hope that Kindle users will press this issue and demand some kind of guarantee about Amazon using this technology in the future instead of their promise to act differently in the future.

Relative link:

Very confused Kindle community over the deletions and subsequent refunds

1984, Amazon, Animal Farm, Big Brother, George, Kindle, Orwell Hide

This one doesn’t relate to the every day user but still is pretty cool. SolarNetOne utilizes solar-power, long distance wireless networking, and Ubuntu to literally make a wireless hotspot anywhere the sun shines. Their kit comes with solar panels, batteries, a server and all necessary routing paraphernalia, and workstations withinput devices and monitors, literally everything you need. Here’s a handy diagram out of Martin Streicher’s article SolarNetOne: Solar-powered networking for anyone (linked below), dotted lines are the flow of electricity, solid lines are internet signal:

As you can see this is a very scalable system, listed capacity is 50 workstations pulling a mere 12.5 watts each while in use (8 of those watts are in the monitor).The cost for the kit is listed at $15k, but there’s no mention of how many workstations are provided for the price. Another nice thing about this system is the use of off the shelf parts in the server system so if something should happen it is easily and cheaply replaceable.

So who is this aimed for you might ask. I certainly don’t need a personal solar powered hotspot. This one might surprise you, developing nations. Streicher’s article lists 77% of the world as not having access to the internet and names weak or non-existent power grids as one of the main reasons why this might be the case. Also lets face it, in North America, Western Europe, and several places in Asia fiber optics and wireless internet signal are common, but this is not the case in the rest of the world. In places like that even if you could get consistent power to your computer you aren’t going the have the physical ability to connect to the rest of the world. One last and very important thing that Streicher points out is that in Africa for instance if there’s a civil war or a natural disaster, times when internet access could actually save lives by directing rescue efforts to those in need, would be the time that any access to power or internet would be most likely to be cut.

Because of all these reasons and more Scott Johnson (founder and lead engineer of SolarNetOne) decided to put together a kit that could circumvent all of these potential problems and still provide the user with high up-time, easy to maintain, internet access. In fact cleaning of the solar panels and battery maintenance are the only physical maintenance listed as necessary to maintain these systems. Part of the ease of maintenance came with the selection of the Ubuntu operating system (version 8.04 for those who care). The included Aptitude software management software makes it easy for on-site administrators to keep the system updated, preventing costly maintenance visits. Also Linux’s built is security and lack of virus danger makes for very effective equipment even if the workstation users aren’t experienced in all the ways that malware distributors try and get their software onto user’s computers.

All of these great decisions have lead to very high satisfaction in the companies first (and at time of writing only) 5 installs. Including the first one at Katsina State University in Nigeria were the biggest problem was apparently shipping the power hardware through Germany. SolarNetOne is apparently already in talks with 10 more possible deployment sites in both non-profit and for-profit situations.

Links for more info

Martin Streicher’s article: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-solarnetone/?ca=dgr-lnxw03SolarNetOnedth-l&S_TACT=105AGX59&S_CMP=grlnxw03

SolarNetOne’s website: http://gnuveau.net/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi

africa, hotspot, internet, Linux, Nigeria, solar, SolarNetOne, Ubuntu, wireless Hide