What Can SmartDust Replace?

SmartDust as mentioned in the earlier post is revolutionizing the way we do everything; it has an endless potential to enhance and replace many technologies out their today. The great thing about SmartDust is that it is small and convenient; it does not take up room. Researchers are constantly coming up with fascinating IT innovations that are very efficient.

Here are some useful functionalities of SmartDust:

• This mote has the ability to replace our ordinary video cameras one day. Technologists have clearly identified its capabilities and one which they found is that it can have a built in video capturing compatibility. This is absolutely a mind blowing innovation, having a dust sized IT filming video? What is next?
  

• One of the inventor’s of the SmartDust is Kris Pister, and he has touched upon one of its many significant applications. One in particular which he talked about was the Virtual Keyboard. "A smart-dust mote stuck to each fingernail," he says, "that could allow finger movements in air to be transmitted to a computer”. This IT has just extended peoples visions; now computers could get even smaller! All the computer needs to know is where your fingers are and then it can “sculpt 3D shapes in virtual clay, play the piano and gesture in sign language. It is also mentioned “Combined with a MEMS augmented-reality heads-up display, your entire computer I/O would be invisible to the people around you. Couple that with wireless access and you need never be bored in a meeting again! Surf the web while the boss rambles on and on."
  


• The following application of SmartDust is brilliant; researchers are putting something together in order to have SmartDust explore planets. They say that combination of many motes will be attached to space probes and sent out to space for exploration purposes. The whole idea of these SmartDust is to have them “packed into the nose cones of planetary probes and then released into the atmospheres of planets, where they would be carried on the wind. For a planet like Mars, smart dust particles would each have to be the size of a grain of sand”.
  
  References:
  http://www.innovationwatch.com/choiceisyours/choiceisyours.2006.12.15.htm
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6566317.stm
  http://siliconrobot.com/fingeracc/fingerglove.jpg