Broadband and Me

They're small, they're round they compute all around...

Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends

Spray-on Nanocomputers Are Coming
Computing is about to really become ubiquitous if a research project started at Edinburgh University delivers its promises. In "A spray-on computer is way to do IT, the Edinburgh Evening News writes that "spray-on computers the size of a grain of sand are set to transform information technology."
Scientists at the institution have just been awarded a £1.3 million grant to develop the "ubiquitous computing" technology which uses tiny semiconductor specks that can sense, compute and communicate without wires.
Researchers are already working with staff at Edinburgh hospitals to develop a method of using the computers to monitor heart patients at home.
They plan to spray the nanocomputers on to the chests of coronary patients, where the tiny cells would record a patient’s health and transmit information back to a hospital computer.
And this isn't the only application envisioned by the scientists. Professor Arvid, who leads the project, thinks our current computer interfaces, typically a keyboard or a mouse, will completely be replaced by these nanocomputers.
Arvid said: "In the future, computers will be able to be diffused into the environment. There won't be a sharp division -- barricades will just disappear into the background.

I need to do some more research on ubiquitous computing however the ideas here behind the nanocomputer and its applications are I suppose what makes technology so fascinating for me. Infinte possibilites suggest themselves from a computer the size of a grain of sand with sensing and communication capabilites.

I can always track my children. I can check out my own health. I can network and operate the whole house very easily. I can communicate around the world without recourse to a phone or a keyboard. Science fiction moving to science fact.