'Smart dust' aims to monitor everything

[bloomington-lib]

Source: CNN

Palo Alto, California (CNN) -- In the 1990s, a researcher named Kris Pister dreamed up a wild future in which people would sprinkle the Earth with countless tiny sensors, no larger than grains of rice.

These "smart dust" particles, as he called them, would monitor everything, acting like electronic nerve endings for the planet. Fitted with computing power, sensing equipment, wireless radios and long battery life, the smart dust would make observations and relay mountains of real-time data about people, cities and the natural environment.

Now, a version of Pister's smart dust fantasy is starting to become reality.

"It's exciting. It's been a long time coming," said Pister, a computing professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/03/smart.dust.sensors/

[Oregone]

1. Lets try throwing em in the Gulf of Mexico to start

Ask them just how fucked we all are

Wow. Gizmos. Aren't they neat? Don't they make our existence worth existing for?

I can finally sleep better at night know "smart dust" will soon be a reality

[woo me with science]

2. LOL

And who's monitoring all this dust?

I think it might be our cat.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

3. Just think, your pocket and belly button "lint" might not be so innocent anymore...

...eom.

[IcyPeas]

4. ha! and people say chemtrails don't exist......

[Mist]

5. Puts me in mind of the nano-technology in Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age," which I

read a few weeks ago. Problem is, they'd have to have an amazing amount of computer power to sift and make sense of all that data.

[bemildred]

8. Yep.

It takes an amazing amount of computing power, and it has to be structured in just the right way. It is one thing to generate a big pile of data, and another thing entirely to do something useful with it in a timely fashion.

[InkAddict]

14. "Prey"

Michael Creighton

[mortfrom]

17. Stupid book

Really stupid book. From a, well maybe not stupid, but perhaps ignorant, author.

[No Elephants]

6. Tee hee. You said "Pister."

[Javaman]

19. Pister dust....

doesn't really have the same ring as pixie. dust.

[Rex]

7. What happens if it becomes self aware and wants to bond with

genetically modified food? Move over Godzilla, the Corn of the Apocalypse approaches!.

[zogofzorkon]

9. "Smart dust fantasy" as I know it was an unusual event in the 60s. It was

psychotic dust nightmare that was the norm, something even most hardcore space/time travelers tended to avoid.

[Soylent Brice]

10. the singularity is very, very near apparently... n/t

[rug]

11. I'm still getting over the notion that most household dust is dead human skin.

[No Elephants]

24. Even worse: living and dead microscopic dust mites EVERYwhere. Ewwwww.

[varelse]

12. The first tools for a program of all-pervasive government and/or corporate surveilance?

nice.

[tanyev]

13. If it's smart enough to clean my house for me, bring it on.

[EnviroBat]

15. I'ma gonna start buying up all the dust-busters.

I will be a b'gillionaire!

[Marthe48]

16. No US company would hire the people to sift the info

so the information will pile up like junk in a basement, and no one will look at it or use it. Then they'll have a yard sale.

[mortfrom]

18. You can bet your booties

that the denialists, funded from the same bottomless well that BP will use to defray Gulf costs, will sift and pick and choose those bits and bytes that can stir the controversy regarding AGW.

[Marthe48]

22. well, I meant they'd outsource all the analysis jobs

I have no doubt that someone will create mischief from this. Instead of using it to improve life and environment, it'll be used to foment fear and destroy habitat. Well done Mister Pister!

[Javaman]

20. and what happens when we breath this stuff in?

or it gets into the food chain? or a million other things that it could harm?

[Phoonzang]

21. Nerve endings for the planet? I thought those were supposed to be in the form of trees...

Also, we don't have head tentacles.

[meegbear]

23. Anything that can be stopped by a Hoover doesn't sound very smart to me

[gristy]

25. What's the difference in size between a dust particle and a VHS tape?

Same as the difference in size between a dust particle and these sensors.
I suppose an article about sensors the size of VHS tapes scattered about our environment doesn't get the clicks.
Not a good article. Belongs in National Enquirer maybe?

[eppur_se_muova]

26. I guess "smart rice" just doesn't have the same cachet.

Personally, I think "cybermaggots" would be an appropriate term. :evilgrin: