Cracked & Programmable Matter

One of the big discoveries that I have made this semester is finding out about cracked.com (thank you Mr. Ronbeck!). It is an online blogging site that covers a wide range of topics and, considering that I don’t spend a lot of time surfing the net, this site has become like a shiny new toy. It covers many topics ranging from the latest technologies to funny articles about completely random topics.

One of the more interesting articles that I read recently was 5 materials that will make the world as we know it obsolete. What I found particularly interesting was the section on ‘Programmable Matter’. According to Wikipedia: “Programmable matter refers to matter which has the ability to change its physical properties (shape, density, moduli, optical properties, etc.) in a programmable fashion, based upon user input or autonomous sensing. Programmable matter is thus linked to the concept of a material which inherently has the ability to perform information processing”. Before reading the article, I had no idea that this kind of thing even existed! And it opens up a whole wold of opportunities – from gadgets that can transform themselves to completely self sufficient, morphable robots.

Programmable matter, of course, hasn’t reach that much of an advanced level yet. However, it is only a matter of time until the technology is perfected to a level that means that we will start seeing it in our day to day lives. Intel has released a teaser video that shows some of the early possibilities of the technology:

I personally have mixed feelings about science reaching such an advanced level. Sure, this kind of thing can open up a lot of amazing possibilities, but like anything else this wonderful, if it reaches the wrong hands all sorts of things can go wrong. Like the cracked article, I’m picturing something along the lines of Terminator 2 which doesn’t look fun on any level!