MAKE: Blog: Shape-shifting programmable matter

Shape-shifting programmable matter

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Intel teases shape-shifting programmable matter via Fabbaloo.

In the final keynote of the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) Thursday, Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer, shed some light on work around programmable matter, as he teased the audience with what Intel believes would apply as technology in the next four decades.
The idea of programmable matter, he explained, revolves around tiny glass spheres with processing power and photovoltaic for generating electricity to run the tiny circuitry. These particles called catoms would move relative to one another via electrostatic.

The concept of programmable matter can be thought of as "the ultimate form of digital printing", Rattner told ZDNet Asia Wednesday in an interview. "You literally could make an object of any imaginable shape, or design an object of any imaginable shape, and simply 'hit the print command' and the matter would take that shape.

"[The late] Arthur C. Clarke (famed British author and inventor) had this wonderful quote: 'Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.' And that's what programmable matter is--it's a technology so advanced it might as well be magic," he said.

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Comments

Oldest comments listed first.

Posted by: on September 1, 2008 at 11:51 AM

Trillions

I wonder if this is what Nicholas Fisk had in mind in his book Trillions?

Posted by: Chris on September 2, 2008 at 1:56 PM

dangerous

Technology like this is dangerous. Only about 9 people in the world understand how it works. It's right out of a Star Trek episode where the "makers" left something running and it wreaks havoc on a planet or its people

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