Computers are getting smaller and smaller.
But what if we had sensors the size of dust, that could float through the air undetected, talk to one another, gather information, and transmit that information back down to a central place? This is the concept behind smart dust, and it’s more plausible than you might think.
Guests:
- Amy Webb, quantitative futurist and founder of the Future Today Institute
- Faine Greenwood, journalist and drone expert
- Stacey Higginbotham, journalist, co-host of the Internet of Things podcast
Further Reading:
- Future Today Institute Tech Trends Report 2018
- Smart Dust Is Coming, Are You Ready?
- Two-photon direct laser writing of ultracompact multi-lens objectives
- 3D printing enables the smalles complex micro-objectives
- Smart Dust Is Coming: New Camera Is the Size of a Grain of Salt
- Smart Dust and Sensory Swarms and OpenWSN (Kris Pister talk at UC Berkeley)
- DTIC ADA464105: Dynamic Resource Allocation for a Sensor Network
Paper from Bombas advertisement: Spray-On Socks: Ethics, Agency, and the Design of Product-Service Systems by Damon Taylor
Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky.
If you want to suggest a future we should take on, send us a note on Twitter, Facebook or by email at info@flashforwardpod.com. We love hearing your ideas! And if you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in the episode, email us there too. If you’re right, I’ll send you something cool.
And if you want to support the show, there are a few ways you can do that too! Head to www.flashforwardpod.com/support for more about how to give. But if that’s not in the cards for you, you can head to iTunes and leave us a nice review or just tell your friends about us. Those things really do help.
That’s all for this future, come back next time and we’ll travel to a new one.
Flash Forward is a critically acclaimed podcast about the future.
In each episode, host Rose Eveleth takes on a possible (or not so possible) future scenario — everything from the existence of artificial wombs, to what would happen if space pirates dragged a second moon to Earth. What would the warranty on a sex robot look like? How would diplomacy work if we couldn’t lie? Could there ever be a black market for fecal transplants? (Complicated, it wouldn’t, and yes, respectively, in case you’re curious.) By combining audio drama and deep reporting, Flash Forward gives listeners an original and unique window into the future, how likely different scenarios might be, and how to prepare for what might come.
