For many years, Foresight has been pointing out that nanotechnology will be used for surveillance. Now Kevin Mitnick makes a long-term prediction on nanosurveillance. An excerpt: Warrantless Surveillance: The Worst is Yet to Come …Far from censuring the president, most of Congress seems completely unconcerned by the issue of warrantless surveillance. And telecom companies are… Continue reading Nanotechnology-based surveillance predicted
Nanowerk brings our attention to a story at Forbes.com looking at anticipated developments in sensing and monitoring: At their annual meeting this fall in Montreal, there was little of the traditional talk among the international privacy people about the nuts and bolts of data protection. Instead, there were urgent and distressed discussions about “uberveillance,” “ambient… Continue reading Nanotechnology for surveillance vs. privacy
In their current issue, the folks who usually focus on nuclear war take a look ahead to nanotech war, via a book review by CRN’s Mike Treder of the book Military Nanotechnology: Potential Applications and Preventive Arms Control by Jürgen Altmann. Deeply researched and carefully worded, Military Nanotechnology is an overview of an emerging technology… Continue reading Nanotechnology in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Registration for Foresight’s Nov. 3-4 Vision Weekend focused on nanotechnology and other advanced technologies — traditionally restricted to Foresight Senior Associates — is being opened to the general public this year as an experiment. Space is limited and participants are advised to register very soon. To warm up for our Sat/Sun afternoon unconference, in the… Continue reading Nanotechnology "Unconference" now open to general public
The Heritage Foundation portrays itself as a conservative think tank, and by gosh, they are! Specifically, they are conservative on the longer term prospects for nanotechnology: In the more distant future, combining nanocomputers, sensors, and nanomechanical architectures into one system would make possible autonomously targeted and guided projectiles, such as bullets and rockets. Nanotechnology could… Continue reading Heritage Foundation: Conservative on nanotechnology too
Here at Foresight we like to present a balanced picture of nanotechnology, pushing for the benefits and heading off downsides. To do this, it’s necessary to discuss those nanotech downsides especially when someone asks about them. Earth & Sky asked me, and put the audio on the web: Upcoming, said Peterson, are issues of privacy… Continue reading Nanotechnology podcast: near, mid, and long term
Just received from Steffen Foss Hansen is a paper by his colleague Evan Michelson at the Wilson Center on the tough issue of “Nanotechnology Policy: An Analysis of Transnational Governance Issues Facing the United States and China.” An excerpt: Due to the rapid pace of R&D, discoveries in nanotechnology could come in great, discontinuous leaps… Continue reading Challenges of US/China nanotechnology
BusinessWeek.com reports that nanotechnology is the next big thing in Russia: Russia will pour over $1 billion into equipment for nanotechnology research over the next three years as it uses massive oil and gas export earnings to diversify an economy now heavily dependent on raw materials, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Wednesday. “(Nanotechnology)… Continue reading Russia: $1 billion from oil into nanotechnology
In the long term, we’ll need effective security techniques for advanced nanotechnology-based systems. This will take a while to figure out, so come help us do it at an upcoming open source conference, Penguicon: Open Source-style Security for the Whole Physical World Christine Peterson, Bruce Schneier One of the biggest problems society faces this century… Continue reading Open source security for nanotechnology
USA Today covers the challenging but environmentally important issue of making batteries: inefficient, nasty things today that need to get a lot better and cheaper. And they will, with nanotech developed by these two MIT professors: [Prof. Angela] Belcher’s virus-assembled batteries are thin, transparent sheets that look like plastic wrap. They could be used to… Continue reading Batteries will be everywhere with nanotechnology
