466 replies to this topic

[valkyrie_ice]

The rarity of the elements doesn't really contribute that much to the cost of a chip, because one chip contains such a nanoscopic amount of the expensive elements. The cost comes from all the complex processing steps and expensive machinery that makes up a modern chip fab. If it turns out to be the case that graphene does away with a lot of that complexity, that would be great. It might well get rid of some of it, but it might bring in a few new ones of its own. Are we far enough along in the development of graphene electronics to really make price predictions?

http://nextbigfuture...ne-25-inch.html

Researchers at Samsung and Sungkyunkwan University, in Korea, have produced a continuous layer of pure graphene the size of a large television,
spooling it out through rollers on top of a flexible, see-through, 63-centimeter-wide (25 inch) polyester sheet.

A typical "wafer" of silicon is 300 millimeters wide, or approximately a foot in diameter. This typically will produce a few hundred "chips". Here we are talking about a SHEET 25 inches wide, which can be continuously rolled out. The simple fact that chips can be fabricated CONTINUOUSLY indicates a huge increase in chip production ability, which translates into lower cost per chip. At present there are also numerous methods being developed to make graphene circuits in bulk, all of which indicate a complexity of manufacture comparable, or simpler than existing silicon manufacturing techniques. Based on the information currently available across the web, it seems extremely likely that costs per chip will be significantly lower for graphene, with massive improvements in speed, density, and durability, and massive reductions in power consumption.

[Reno]

It's processed carbon... --- cheap

Have you priced carbon fiber lately?

Silicon processors are just processed sand.

Last I looked the transoceanic cables were mostly copper. I think some of the newer ones might be fiber optic. You were talking about the cost of transmission to remote areas, right?

They've already connected most of africa up to the rest of the world. What's holding them back is a group of telecom companies which are taking advantage of the lack of competition in the area. When they finally get some competition in the telecommunications industry over there you'll see more people getting internet access.

The rarity of the elements doesn't really contribute that much to the cost of a chip, because one chip contains such a nanoscopic amount of the expensive elements. The cost comes from all the complex processing steps and expensive machinery that makes up a modern chip fab. If it turns out to be the case that graphene does away with a lot of that complexity, that would be great. It might well get rid of some of it, but it might bring in a few new ones of its own. Are we far enough along in the development of graphene electronics to really make price predictions?

Yes, we are. All electronics come out expensive and fall quickly over time. As you've told me before, there is cut throat competition to produce the next big thing in the hardware sector. Today's expensive gadget is tomorrows cheap junk. Once complexity is mass produced, it's a matter of time before the novelty wears off and the price comes down.

[valkyrie_ice]

More on the Carbon miners:

http://nextbigfuture...ical-photo.html

Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo (STEP) Carbon Capture can be up to 50% efficient at removing CO2 from the atmosphere using solar power.
* 700 square kilometers (270 square miles) of this system would extract the excess CO2 within ten years
* Research is also looking STEP generation of synthetic jet fuel and synthetic diesel
* Further refinement and scaling of STEP carbon capture
* Developing STEP processes to generate a variety of metals and bleach

[niner]

More on the Carbon miners:

http://nextbigfuture...ical-photo.html

Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo (STEP) Carbon Capture can be up to 50% efficient at removing CO2 from the atmosphere using solar power.
* 700 square kilometers (270 square miles) of this system would extract the excess CO2 within ten years
* Research is also looking STEP generation of synthetic jet fuel and synthetic diesel
* Further refinement and scaling of STEP carbon capture
* Developing STEP processes to generate a variety of metals and bleach

This is an impressive technology achievement, but it's not the sort of thing that will be cheap. It uses a lithium carbonate eutectic melt, running at 750 to 950 degrees C. That is hot, so the materials to withstand that temperature for a long time will not be inexpensive. While they talk about sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere, they don't address the extremely low concentration of the gas. Their analysis is based on having a stream of pure CO2 already available, a very different situation. If they tried to use it to pull CO2 out of air, they wouldn't have enough CO2 in any one spot to justify the cost of the apparatus. This might make some sense as a back-end to a smokestack, but if you work out the total cost, it would probably be cheaper to use that solar energy directly, and burn less coal.

[niner]

http://nextbigfuture...ne-25-inch.html

Researchers at Samsung and Sungkyunkwan University, in Korea, have produced a continuous layer of pure graphene the size of a large television,
spooling it out through rollers on top of a flexible, see-through, 63-centimeter-wide (25 inch) polyester sheet.

A typical "wafer" of silicon is 300 millimeters wide, or approximately a foot in diameter. This typically will produce a few hundred "chips". Here we are talking about a SHEET 25 inches wide, which can be continuously rolled out. The simple fact that chips can be fabricated CONTINUOUSLY indicates a huge increase in chip production ability, which translates into lower cost per chip. At present there are also numerous methods being developed to make graphene circuits in bulk, all of which indicate a complexity of manufacture comparable, or simpler than existing silicon manufacturing techniques. Based on the information currently available across the web, it seems extremely likely that costs per chip will be significantly lower for graphene, with massive improvements in speed, density, and durability, and massive reductions in power consumption.

This is extremely cool, and will probably result in cheaper flat screens, and ultimately flexible/transparent electronics. As far as the cost of chips goes, this doesn't address all the processing that would be required to convert a homogeneous sheet of graphene into a processor. You still have to create circuits of enormous complexity, with huge numbers of transistors and interconnects. I could believe that a graphene processor will be less expensive than a silicon processor of equivalent speed, but I don't think it's going to be in the "too cheap to meter" category.

[valkyrie_ice]

This is extremely cool, and will probably result in cheaper flat screens, and ultimately flexible/transparent electronics. As far as the cost of chips goes, this doesn't address all the processing that would be required to convert a homogeneous sheet of graphene into a processor. You still have to create circuits of enormous complexity, with huge numbers of transistors and interconnects. I could believe that a graphene processor will be less expensive than a silicon processor of equivalent speed, but I don't think it's going to be in the "too cheap to meter" category.

I never said too cheap to meter. I said at much LOWER cost. Don't know if you've looked at todays news but: http://nextbigfuture...-prototype.html

Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal on Thursday launched a $35 computing device that will be made available to ‘learners’ right from primary schools to universities. Aiming at bringing down the price to $10, the Ministry has also begun discussions with global manufacturers to start mass production of arguably the world’s cheapest laptop

then there is this as well: http://nextbigfuture...on-over-84.html

Panasonic has developed a high power Gallium Nitride (GaN) transistor for long-distance communication at millimeter-wave frequencies. A 25GHz wireless transceiver was fabricated using the GaN transistor. The device exhibits a maximum output power of 10.7W at 25GHz which theoretically enables communication over 84km.

Now, graphene may not start out as cheap as silicon, but with the ever advancing trend towards cheap, fast, and lighter, I cannot see a timeframe exceeding a few years before graphene chips are in those $35 devices. And as it seems likely we are going to be able to print circuits as quickly as we can print a sheet of paper within 5-8 years, I think that by 2020 my handheld VR device that is cheap enough to be affordable even to african tribesmen is not very far fetched at all.

[valkyrie_ice]

And for the record: http://nextbigfuture...-mixer-and.html

Digital Fabricator

The Digital Fabricator is a personal, three-dimensional printer for food, which works by storing, precisely mixing, depositing and cooking layers of ingredients. Its cooking process starts with an array of food canisters, which refrigerate and store a user's favorite ingredients. These are piped into a mixer and extruder head that can accurately deposit elaborate food combinations with sub-millimeter precision. While the deposition takes place, the food is heated or cooled by the Fabricator's chamber or the heating and cooling tubes located on the printing head. This fabrication process not only allows for the creation of flavors and textures that would be completely unimaginable through other cooking techniques, but, through a touch-screen interface and web connectivity, also allows users to have ultimate control over the origin, quality, nutritional value and taste of every meal.

It's primitive, it's first gen, it's never going to make it to market in this form, but the first food printer has been made. Less than a year after I predicted it.

[valkyrie_ice]

Okay Niner. Here's a story that might answer a few of those doubts of yours:


http://www.physorg.c...s199886118.html

One Chicago skyline is dazzling enough. Now imagine 15,000 of them.

A Northwestern University research team has done just that -- drawing 15,000 identical skylines with tiny beams of light using an innovative nanofabrication technology called beam-pen lithography (BPL).

Details of the new method, which could do for nanofabrication what the desktop printer has done for printing and information transfer, will be published Aug. 1 by the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The Northwestern technology offers a means to rapidly and inexpensively make and prototype circuits, optoelectronics and medical diagnostics and promises many other applications in the electronics, photonics and life sciences industries.

"It's all about miniaturization," said Chad A. Mirkin, George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and director of Northwestern's International Institute for Nanotechnology. "Rapid and large-scale transfer of information drives the world. But conventional micro- and nanofabrication tools for making structures are very expensive. We are trying to change that with this new approach to photolithography and nanopatterning."

Using beam-pen lithography, the researchers patterned 15,000 replicas of the Chicago skyline (featuring the Willis Tower and the John Hancock Center) simultaneously in about half an hour. Fifteen thousand tiny pens deposit the skylines over square centimeters of space. Conventional nanopatterning technologies, such as electron-beam lithography, allow one to make similarly small structures but are inherently low throughput and do not allow one to do large-area nanofabrication.

now, it's not as refined as some other techniques, as it seems limited to approx 100nm structures, but for the creation of electronics devices to which processors can be connected, this offers the ability to parallel print large numbers of devices simultaneously.


And it's a "printer" type device, yet another in the growing arsenal.


So far, graphene has been used to create transistors, capacitors, antennas, resistors, switches, diodes, and basically every single discrete device which makes up a modern electronics device, and it has been proven to be able to "print" all these things in as little as three single atom thick layers, using multiple techniques to achieve the same thing.


Can you seriously still doubt that the ability to print a computer on a single sheet of substrate, taking the entire structure which is in your desktop unit and reducing to the size of a credit card, using cheap carbon, on cheap plastic, using a printer capable of cranking out 15,000 identical copies an hour, won't force prices to drop precipitously?

[Elus]

And for the record: http://nextbigfuture...-mixer-and.html

Digital Fabricator

The Digital Fabricator is a personal, three-dimensional printer for food, which works by storing, precisely mixing, depositing and cooking layers of ingredients. Its cooking process starts with an array of food canisters, which refrigerate and store a user's favorite ingredients. These are piped into a mixer and extruder head that can accurately deposit elaborate food combinations with sub-millimeter precision. While the deposition takes place, the food is heated or cooled by the Fabricator's chamber or the heating and cooling tubes located on the printing head. This fabrication process not only allows for the creation of flavors and textures that would be completely unimaginable through other cooking techniques, but, through a touch-screen interface and web connectivity, also allows users to have ultimate control over the origin, quality, nutritional value and taste of every meal.

It's primitive, it's first gen, it's never going to make it to market in this form, but the first food printer has been made. Less than a year after I predicted it.

I think there was a video where Aubrey de grey invited some guy to speak about the possibility of creating a nanofactory. As it turns out, surface chemistry at that scale is incredibly difficult to do, so overcoming the problems of manipulating individual atoms will be quite problematic. What I'm trying to say is, a full-fledged nanofactory might not be possible anytime soon. Let's hope his thinking was linear and he didn't incorporate the law of accelerating returns to his argument .

Edited by Elus, 13 August 2010 - 05:46 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

I think there was a video where Aubrey de grey invited some guy to speak about the possibility of creating a nanofactory. As it turns out, surface chemistry at that scale is incredibly difficult to do, so overcoming the problems of manipulating individual atoms will be quite problematic. What I'm trying to say is, a full-fledged nanofactory might not be possible anytime soon. Let's hope his thinking was linear and he didn't incorporate the law of accelerating returns to his argument .

Surface chemistry using modern techniques in water based solutions is indeed incredibly difficult, which is why Drexler has never advocated anything remotely like it.


The essence of a nanofactory is the creation of assembly lines, which take raw atomic stock, assemble single atoms into precise combinations, and do this ad infinitum down a chain until a precisely arranged "atomic assembly block" is passed on to the next larger conveyor belt, until these "blocks" are laid side by side on the final "assembly platform"
in a pattern which enables the atomic surfaces to bond like lego blocks snapping together.


All of this is done in vacuum so that no "chemistry" as we know it today takes place. This is precise "mechanosynthesis", the placing of two atoms together in such a way that the bonds between them are stronger than the bonds to the "placement" molecule.


Biological molecules do this all the time in solution phase chemistry, the goal of Drexlerian Nanotech is to engineer non biological means to do the same. However at this stage, it seems likely that "organic nanotech" is developing at a faster pace than "vacuum nanotech" so we will likely start to see DNA based "nanofactories" by the end of the decade, though it is likely that they will be limited to making devices no larger than single cells. Even such limits to manufacturing sizes could see massively disruptive changes in manufacturing processes.


However, thats the "bottom up" approach. The food printer described here is a "Top Down" approach, which is also making enormous progress, and doesn't have to get down to the the nanometer scale to be useful.


Because you see, it's already down the single cell level. Right now, that "food printer" is little more than a toy. I'm actually far more interested in bioprinters, because if you can print a human ear, heart or kidney, then you can print a nice thick raw steak too. So given a few years, that food machine might have more in common with a bioprinter, laying down individual "stock cells" of animal or vegetable matter, making you a perfect ribeye steak with a baked potato.


But beyond that, put the top down and bottom up approaches together, and you might just have a prototype "universal manufacturing" device, using nanofabrication to make cell sized assemblies which are put together by a 3D printer.

[Elus]

I think there was a video where Aubrey de grey invited some guy to speak about the possibility of creating a nanofactory. As it turns out, surface chemistry at that scale is incredibly difficult to do, so overcoming the problems of manipulating individual atoms will be quite problematic. What I'm trying to say is, a full-fledged nanofactory might not be possible anytime soon. Let's hope his thinking was linear and he didn't incorporate the law of accelerating returns to his argument .

Surface chemistry using modern techniques in water based solutions is indeed incredibly difficult, which is why Drexler has never advocated anything remotely like it.

The essence of a nanofactory is the creation of assembly lines, which take raw atomic stock, assemble single atoms into precise combinations, and do this ad infinitum down a chain until a precisely arranged "atomic assembly block" is passed on to the next larger conveyor belt, until these "blocks" are laid side by side on the final "assembly platform"
in a pattern which enables the atomic surfaces to bond like lego blocks snapping together.

All of this is done in vacuum so that no "chemistry" as we know it today takes place. This is precise "mechanosynthesis", the placing of two atoms together in such a way that the bonds between them are stronger than the bonds to the "placement" molecule.

Biological molecules do this all the time in solution phase chemistry, the goal of Drexlerian Nanotech is to engineer non biological means to do the same. However at this stage, it seems likely that "organic nanotech" is developing at a faster pace than "vacuum nanotech" so we will likely start to see DNA based "nanofactories" by the end of the decade, though it is likely that they will be limited to making devices no larger than single cells. Even such limits to manufacturing sizes could see massively disruptive changes in manufacturing processes.

However, thats the "bottom up" approach. The food printer described here is a "Top Down" approach, which is also making enormous progress, and doesn't have to get down to the the nanometer scale to be useful.

Because you see, it's already down the single cell level. Right now, that "food printer" is little more than a toy. I'm actually far more interested in bioprinters, because if you can print a human ear, heart or kidney, then you can print a nice thick raw steak too. So given a few years, that food machine might have more in common with a bioprinter, laying down individual "stock cells" of animal or vegetable matter, making you a perfect ribeye steak with a baked potato.

But beyond that, put the top down and bottom up approaches together, and you might just have a prototype "universal manufacturing" device, using nanofabrication to make cell sized assemblies which are put together by a 3D printer.

I've heard that there are labs working on growing steaks. My research mentor told me about it. It would be nice not to have to butcher animals.

And thanks for the mechanosynthesis information. I'll look into it.

[valkyrie_ice]

Here ya go Niner, Proof that even the Military sees "localized manufacturing" as the Next Big Thing:

http://globalguerril...etroit-etc.html

The US Military Special Operations Command is building eight "mobile factories" that fit into standard shipping containers. These factories are based on the successful experience the US Army has had with something similar called the MPH. From Strategypage:

The MPH was developed when the army realized that the easiest way to get the many rarely requested, but vital, replacement parts to the troops, was to manufacture the parts in the combat zone. In short order, this led to the construction of a portable parts fabrication system, called MPH, that fit into a standard 8x8x20 foot shipping container. The original version used two containers, but smaller equipment and more powerful computers eventually made it possible to use one container.

The key to making this work was the availability of computer controlled machine tools, which can take a block of the proper metal, and machine it into the desired part. The computer controlled machine tools have been around for decades, but the big breakthrough was the development of CAD (Computer Assisted Design) software for PCs in the 1980s, which made the process of designing, and then fabricating, a part much faster. The MPH has a high speed satellite data link, which enables it to obtain the CAD file for a part. Many CAD files are already stored in the MPH. Often, the MPH staff figure out a way to improve a part, based on the broken parts they see, and what the troops tell them.

In the last six years, MPHs have manufactured over 100,000 parts, on the spot. This saves days, or weeks, that it would take to order the part from the manufacturer, and the MPH part is usually a lot cheaper (because the air freight and manufacturer mark ups to pay for maintaining the part in inventory). The next version of the MPH has a 3-D part builder, which uses metal dust and a laser to build a part.

Then there's this little tidbit: http://nextbigfuture...ithography.html

Imagine a desktop fabricator capable of making perfectly repeatable, arbitrary, multi material 3D objects with microscale precision. The objects would be composed of millions or even billions of small physical building blocks (voxels). Some building blocks could be hard, some could be soft. Some could be red, others green or blue. Some could be conductive and others could perform computation or store energy. Some could even be sensors and others actuators, and so on and so forth. With a relatively small repertoire of building block types and a rapid assembler, one could assemble a relatively large variety of machines at high resolution.

Voxels are the building blocks for making things. A rapid assembler will select and organize these Voxels and build them layer by layer into an object. Because you can select different Voxels you can give your object lots of different material properties, even properties that have been impossible. Voxels will then be true digital materials.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-szjlhVMGh4&feature=player_embedded<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-szjlhVMGh4&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-szjlhVMGh4&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

Digital manufacturing is inspired from biology, where DNA, amino acids, and proteins all illustrate systems where a digital structure is formed from a discreet number of aligned, fundamental building blocks. Since the voxels must self-align and interlock with those around them, the overall accuracy is determined by the individual voxels, which can be made very precisely using microfabrication techniques. This phenomenon is analogous to a child (with ~1mm finger positioning accuracy) assembling a Lego™ structure with 5 micron precision. Inherent to the success of this technology is a fabricator that can rapidly assemble millions of voxels in a parallel, top-down approach

Just like inkjet printers scan continuously and deposit drops of ink into paper, the VoxJet deposits physical voxels (or 3D pixels) to create 3D digital matter. This research platform is capable of depositing a 3D lattice of small spheres at a continuous deposition rate of ten spheres per second. Up to three materials may be combined in any configuration. An integrated binder deposition system and non-contact laser feedback system enable robust, repeatable results.

The voxjet has been used to demonstrate fully recyclable multi-material 3D printing. In this process, voxels of multiple materials are printed and bound together by a reversible binder. When it's no longer wanted, the bonds holding the spheres together are reversed (in this case using water-soluble glue), and the individual spheres are reclaimed and fed back into the machine.

[valkyrie_ice]

And some interesting news:

http://nextbigfuture...ed-display.html

The pixels in Guo's displays are about an order of magnitude smaller than those on a typical computer screen. They're about eight times smaller than the pixels on the iPhone 4, which are about 78 microns. He envisions that this pixel size could make this technology useful in projection displays, as well as wearable, bendable or extremely compact displays. They are also simpler to make and more efficient.

Still think that my "VR lenses" won't be here by the end of the decade? The developmental pace we're seeing this year could make them possible inside of two years.


And an update to the 6 degrees of freedom nanomanipulator


http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/08/six-degree-of-freedom-nanomanipulator.html

[Luna]

Even if it's out in two years (maybe!) then it will take until the end of the decade or more to be common. Probably more.

[valkyrie_ice]

Even if it's out in two years (maybe!) then it will take until the end of the decade or more to be common. Probably more.

It didn't take mp3 player, or smartphones that long, so probably not hun. I give it five years from initial prototypes to widespread mass market use.

[Luna]

http://www.popsci.co...keep-moores-law

[Luna]

Still, I don't understand how people can comment about Moore law's. I bought my 2.4GHz dual core CPU maybe 6-7 years ago, now I maybe see a 3.4GHz CPU other there at best.

Or is it per 3.4 per core so 3.4GHz quad core is like 13.2GHz and my PC is like 4.8GHz? which as a computer programmer I am pretty sure is incorrect and still isn't 4 doubling since the one I have is out.

If they only talk about supercomputers then how does it help us? not much I think.

[valkyrie_ice]

You are misunderstanding what Moore's law is. It basically states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months, which has held true. That number doesn't directly translate into computing speed, power, or capability , merely how many can be fit.


Now, this HAS roughly translated into into a doubling of performance, though it's reached a point of diminishing returns due to the methods used to create the REST of the computer around the processor, but there are numerous developments which will change this in the next few years. At this point, the biggest bottleneck to increased computer performance over the next decade appears to be programming, not hardware.

[Reno]

Still, I don't understand how people can comment about Moore law's. I bought my 2.4GHz dual core CPU maybe 6-7 years ago, now I maybe see a 3.4GHz CPU other there at best.

Or is it per 3.4 per core so 3.4GHz quad core is like 13.2GHz and my PC is like 4.8GHz? which as a computer programmer I am pretty sure is incorrect and still isn't 4 doubling since the one I have is out.

If they only talk about supercomputers then how does it help us? not much I think.

Nerd moment.

They are able to stuff 6 cpu cores on roughly the same size chip as they were stuffing one core on a decade ago. They weren't able to really boost speed that much because of the rise in heat created with the high amount of voltage. That's why those one core xeon 3.x chips several years ago had such huge fans and heat sinks. Keeping them things cool was a real pain. Let the fan go and the thing would melt itself into a paperweight. There are people who pour liquid nitrogen directly onto the cpu to cool it down far enough to boost those old cpus up to 8 and 9ghz.




When you have a multi core chip you basically are running a super computer. You are running multiple computers in one. That doesn't mean the speed is raised, it means you can have one cpu work on one task while another cpu works on another. Run windows with one cpu, run a photo editing software with another, burn a cd with a third, and surf the internet with the forth. That's how a super computer works. You have arrays of nodes, or computers linked together by network cables. Each computer is assigned a problem to solve.

Edited by Reno, 02 September 2010 - 04:52 AM.

[Luna]

Well I really want to see computer being able to run avatar like world in real time, with that full quality and more.

[Elus]

Did you say something about AUGMENTED REALITY?!

[valkyrie_ice]

Wish you had posted that last week Elus, considering I that was when I sent H+ Magazine my article on using quadcopter drones as Remote Telepresence Units in this exact manner.

[Reno]

Put gps and a video feed on the this one.

Edited by Reno, 06 September 2010 - 05:27 AM.

[valkyrie_ice]

Put gps and a video feed on the this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvH2f-AewX8

Once the article hits the web, I'll have to add these videos as update posts. Thanks Guys!

[niner]

Wow, the Mikrokopter is amazing. With GPS and ability to lift over a kilogram of payload, these seem like something that governments would be in a lather over. What stops someone from sending one of these into the Whitehouse Rose Garden during a ceremony, or the Rose Bowl during half time, carrying a kg of high explosive or high toxicity weaponry? Umm, just curious...

[valkyrie_ice]

Wow, the Mikrokopter is amazing. With GPS and ability to lift over a kilogram of payload, these seem like something that governments would be in a lather over. What stops someone from sending one of these into the Whitehouse Rose Garden during a ceremony, or the Rose Bowl during half time, carrying a kg of high explosive or high toxicity weaponry? Umm, just curious...

Gee thanks Niner. I just write a 3 page article on the peaceful uses of such devices as remote telepresence units, enabling people to see and hear as if they were there, and how such "drones" could not only revolutionize VR, but enable completely automated warehouses, enable firemen to safely search a building, rescuers to safely search a cave, enable scientists to track wildlife or examine environments like never before, and all sorts of other amazing, useful, highly desirable ways, and the ONLY use you can think of for them is "Hey you could make a really neat smartbomb with this!"


Well guess what, Niner. What's stopping people? Nothing. What's stopping the military from mounting gatlings on them? Nothing. What's stopping a terrorist army from smartbombing the heck out of someplace? Other than it can't lift a "martyr", nothing. Yes, just like ANY tool, you can kill someone with one. Whoop de do. How many ways can we do that now? Several billion?


How about thoughts on how we can NOT KILL EACH OTHER WITH THEM?


And sorry if I sound snippy, but my roomate's mother died last night, because she refused to accept medical help and pretty much did anything she could to hurry it along, so things dealing with death piss me off right now.

[Luna]

One day when it's quiet, less.. moving (at least visibly).. it will also be one of those news camera probes like in movies

Though I'd prefer levitation to current flight techniques! Any magic on that department Val?

[valkyrie_ice]

One day when it's quiet, less.. moving (at least visibly).. it will also be one of those news camera probes like in movies

Though I'd prefer levitation to current flight techniques! Any magic on that department Val?

That depends on how the Mach reactionless thrusters being worked on in Britain turn out.


http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/02/mach-effect-propulsion-research-update.html

[valkyrie_ice]

And H+ published my article today!

http://hplusmagazine...onal-quadcopter

And Elus! I managed to get the video you posted added to it!!!

I'm going to see if there are any responses, and in a few days I'll post the hexacopter video as a followup.

[Reno]

It looks like they've already done most of the work perfecting the software. Something similar would make one hell of an evac craft for the airforce. If there was a center compartment kept level by gyros then something like this or the hexakopter could land load up and take off in the blink of an eye without harming the passengers.

Edited by Reno, 08 September 2010 - 08:29 PM.