"Smart Dust" to Explore Planets 85
Ollabelle writes "The BBC is reporting how tiny chips with flexible skins could be used to glide through a planet's atmosphere in swarms to gather data and report back. 'The idea of using millimetre-sized devices to explore far-flung locations is nothing new, but Dr Barker and his colleagues are starting to look in detail at how it might be achieved. The professor at Glasgow's Nanoelectronics Research Centre told delegates at the Royal Astronomical Society gathering that computer chips of the size and sophistication required to meet the challenge already existed.'"
Goo (Score:5, Insightful)
Replace "gather data" with "decimate indigenous life" and "report back" with "multiply exponentially", and you have either a classic horror movie or an Iain Banks novel.
Actually its quite scary either way... grey goo anyone?
Re:Goo (Score:3, Insightful)
Do we still have a problem if the goo is green?
Your concerns are valid in general, but this does not strike me as persuasive argument for this particular technological instance.
How did you get modded up (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Goo (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How did you get modded up (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How did you get modded up (Score:3, Insightful)