will it resonate? … super video post #1 w00t!
[the title sounds cool, but the rest of it is a complete hack from you-tube and a lifetime membership to the geeklord sci-fi hubub booklist... get used to it.]
Let's think about the future in big fat over-reaching strokes. While I'm not tempted to do the requisite research, I suspect if i looked close enough i would be able to conclude that nobody had a clue how significant the impact electricity or mass production or plumbing would have been on life in the developed world around the time that those technologies were first being realized... i posit that nano-tech will be the same sort of technology.
It speaks volumes that our the global civilization is even beginning to have a conversation about the impact of nano-tech in general and programmable matter specifically. Certainly we should... i'm just saying it's impressive that we do.
All that being said... and any shred of creative ability in my soul being totally spent... i'll step aside for some other peoples work to shine:
First off, here's (one of my fav's) a concept from BMW called GINA. The designers discuss a yet-to-be-created elastic fabric (read: spandex+recycled-milkjugs?) surface for the exterior of the car, but i imagine by the time something like this is live, we'll see thin hybrid metals that can emulate the 'non-newtonian fluids' i link below. Such a combination of flexible and rigid states, and the ability to control those states would be very effective at absorbing shock in a collision (among other fabulous applications that I won't begin to discuss in this post)... combined with an intelligent driving computer (that would necessarily have to be less likely than you to get in a wreck) to manage ultra high-speed roadways... I'd be (nearly) invincible:
Yeah, but if that car never comes to pass, then you can check me out in Thunderdome
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Alrighty then, Second-off!
Here's an interesting idea that i think would mix well with my rambling above... they've called the technology needed to create this table 'programmable matter'.... looks like nano-tech+ferrofluid (below) to me :o)
But, perhaps not...
Here's the ferrofluid. The fluid is an oil, and the dark color is nano-sized particles of iron suspended in the oil. Electromagnets beneath the surface are then used to move the iron particles with their magnetic field. Courtesy of Protrude Flow & Wiki
And here's their first try </snide>:
I believe that's made of cornstarch and water and food coloring...
Last but not least, I couldn't resist including this fantastic slo-mo vid... :