We've all heard about video interviews, virtual job fairs, video conferencing and the like. Now imagine another form of virtual interview, one in which you aren't really there, but there's a very scary looking clay replica of you interacting with and shaking hands with your interviewer. That's the living nightmare that "claytronics" may one day bring us.
According to the New Scientist:
The project is still in its infancy, but the researchers hope the new material - made of self-organising nano-computers that can stick to each other and communicate with built-in wireless - will eventually be able to shape-shift in an instant, forming a replica of anything from a banana to a human. They call it "claytronics", and the individual particles are known as claytronic atoms, or "catoms".
The possibilities are mind-boggling. For example, a lump of catoms in your house could shape-shift into a 3D facsimile of your doctor to take your pulse - while the real doctor sits in his office in front of a camera, holding your claytronic doppelgänger's wrist. The claytronic cellphone in your pocket could morph into whatever tool you need. Videoconferencing would gain a physical dimension, with all the participants appearing in claytronic form, and surgeons could even work on claytronic enlargements of internal organs to perform robotic tele-surgery with extreme precision.
Learn more about the joint venture from Carnegie Mellon and Intel Research at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~claytronics/.
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