Take the shape-shifting sands of Spider-man's nemesis Sandman, mix him with the computer-controlled solids on Star Trek's Holodeck, and add the moldability of a lump of Play-Doh and you get Programmable Matter, the possibilities of which are beyond even the dreams of its its designers.
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Nicknamed "Claytronics" by the geniuses working on it at Intel and Carnegie Mellon University, Programmable Matter is a way of creating physical shapes out of a mass of millions of 200-micrometer-diameter spheres — each about twice the width of a human hair. Every independently-moving sphere includes a tiny chipset, and each sphere, referred to as a "catom," is bound to its neighbors and a controlling processor using electrostatic charges (think a powered version of a balloon rubbed on your hair then stuck to a wall). Physical objects can be created from a vat of these spheres using software, molded by hand like clay, then made solid by adjusting the electrostatic charge.
What can you do with it, other than creating a real-life Golem? Its developers envision such boring applications as medical visualization, 3D design, antennas, shape-shifting handhelds and telepresence. In the real world, imagine a cellphone whose tiny keyboard can be stretched into a more usable size when needed, then scrunched down again so the phone fits in your pocket.
When will this godlike capability be a reality? Researchers are still shrinking down the catoms, so next year is out. But your grandkids may one day take programmable matter for granted as we take Wi-Fi as they prance around their homes on Mars.
-----------------------------BY Stewart Wolpin
Source：DVice
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