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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Category: Nanodot

Tech Finance News: VC interest in nanotech

from the here-comes-the-nanobubble dept.
Tech Finance News (19Mar01) ran a cover story entitled Nanotechnology Turns Heads: "Anticipated breakthroughs in nanotechnology and their impact on IT are prompting investors to take notice of the fledgling molecular technology companies… Some, who are already convinced of the promise of the nascent technology, plan to step-up or make initial investments in the space. Nanotechnology, in general, treats atoms as computers treat bits of information…" Funders mentioned include Mission Ventures, Cross Atlantic Capital Partners, Amadeus Capital Partners, Charmex Ventures, and Durlacher. Read More for quotes.

Coping with our extreme environment

from the adapting-to-Mother-Earth's-tantrums dept.
Senior Associate Douglas Mulhall has authored Preparing for Armageddon: How We Can Survive Mega-Disasters in the May-June issue of The Futurist: "A host of resilient technologies based on genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology — GRAIN for short — will help us adapt to environmental extremes" including possibilities such as rapid-escape vehicles, extreme engineering, robotic work crews, environmentally benign products, and disaster-proof people. Not available online, you'll need to buy a paper copy (neither futuristic nor environmentally benign — why can't The Futurist get online?).

Nanotech session at FutureScope 2001

from the nanotech-for-futurists dept.
A special event at the World Future Society's annual conference, FutureScope 2001, will be Nanotech and MEMS Futures: "This session is based on Eric Drexler's vision of molecular nanotech vs. nanoscale science and technology, including comparisons of Macro, Micro, Meso, and Nano scale and overviews of their potential capabilities." Led by David Keenan (BF Goodrich Advance Micro Machines) and two Senior Associates, Hank Lederer and Steven Vetter (president, Angstrom Tools).

University of Cambridge coffee cam to retire from web

from the end-of-an-era dept.
An article in the June 2001 issue of Technology Review Magazine reports ("Trailing Edge: Coffee Cam") that a venerable icon from the early days of the Web — the coffee cam in the Trojan Room at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory — will be retired later this year. According to the article, "The University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory will move to new quarters later this year, and the coffeepot and its camera–after 10 years of cult fame–will retire."

The coffee cam, which was the first video feed connected to the Internet, was originally connected to the local network at the lab in 1991, and made its debut on the World Wide Web a few years later.

Fortune examines next generation technologies

from the molectronics dept.
A series of articles in the May 2001 issue of Fortune Magazine ("The New World Order") attempts to highlight the likely next generation of technologies where investors and entrepreneurs can make their own fortunes. In one article ("In Search of the Silver Bullet"), the magazine "paid visits to five in-the-trenches innovators, each on the verge of what could be a breakthrough discovery."

One of the five is UCLA researcher James Heath, whose work in molecular electronics is profiled ("Building Chips, One Molecule at a Time"). According to the article, "Heath thinks he might be able to build a rudimentary computer within a couple of years. "It won't be a computer you'll be proud of," he says, "but it will work." Then, he believes, if he can scale the whole thing up to a capacity of one megabyte . . . molecular computing becomes, as Heath puts it, "an engineering project"–in other words, a technology that companies can begin to muck around with themselves."

Chapter topic list for Engines of Creation 2001

from the please-comment dept.
It's been fifteen years since Engines of Creation (or see free online version) came out — time for a new book looking at coming technologies. Read More for an initial chapter topic list, target readership, and a list of specific items requested from those wishing to help with the book. Comment by posting here on nanodot in the usual way, or you can use Foresight's annotation tool Crit.org to insert comments at specific locations in the text.

New Republic article advocates a ban on human cloning

from the gene-blues dept.
In an extensive article in The New Republic ("Preventing a Brave New World", May 2001), Leon R. Kass considers some of the moral, ethical, philosophical and legal issues surrounding the possibility of human cloning, and argues that it should be banned. "Human nature itself lies on the operating table," Kass asserts, ìready for alteration, for eugenic and psychic 'enhancement,' for wholesale re-design . . . evangelists are zealously prophesying a post-human future."

Kass, a professor at the University of Chicago and co-author of a book on the ethics of cloning, appears to assume that a "post-human future" implies a future without humans (or at least, human values — as he defines them) when he writes, "No friend of humanity cheers for a post-human future." A ban on human cloning, Kass concludes, is necessary because "Now may be as good a chance as we will ever have to get our hands on the wheel of the runaway train now headed for a post-human world and to steer it toward a more dignified human future."

While focused on human cloning and biological procreation, the article provides a possible insight into how some segments of society may react to the development of non-biological enhancements to human beings, as well as entities with artificial intelligence.

New: Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

from the nanopublishing-heating-up dept.
The new quarterly Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology has published its first issue. Cost is $149 for individuals, $575 for institutions. Editor is H.S. Nalwa (formerly of Hitachi), Editor of the Handbook of Nanostructured Materials and Nanotechnology. Editorial board includes some familiar big names: H. Craighead, Cornell; J. Gimzewski, IBM; C. Lieber, Harvard; M. Reed, Yale; A. Requicha, USC; N. Seeman, NYU; U. Sleytr, Austria; H.I. Smith, MIT; D. Srivastava, NASA. Looks like direct competition for the journal Nanotechnology published by IOP in the UK, and indirect competition for ACS's new Nano Letters.

Nanotechnology and the Environment

from the think-green dept.
Glenn Reynolds, professor of law at the University of Tennessee and a member of the Foresight board of directors, has writen an essay titled "Environmental Regulation of Nanotechnology: Some Preliminary Observations", which appeared in the June 2001 issue of the Environmental Law Reporter.

As Glenn notes in his introduction, "This all-too-brief essay will outline the basic nature of molecular nanotechnology. It will then discuss the likely environmental benefits … and harms … of this technology, and at least seek to begin the discussion of how nanotechnology might be dealt with in a way that will maximize the environmental benefits — which are likely to be enormous — while minimizing the potential harms, which, if allowed to materialize, are likely to be large as well."

The essay is available on the Foresight Institute web site, as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file (~112 KB), and is posted with the permission of the journal's publisher, the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C.

ASME engineers put strong focus on nanotechnology

from the engineering-the-future dept.
A number of interesting presentations from a workshop titled "Beyond Micro Device Engineering: Nanotechnology", held by ASME International (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) in December 2000 in Washington, D.C., are now available either as HTML web pages or Adobe Acrobat PDF files. (Note: some of the PDF files are huge.)

This workshop, as well as the rapidly increasing level of interest in nanotechnology and nanosystems among various engineering communities, was the focus of one of the cover articles in Foresight Update #44 (April 2001). The article provides additional coverage on the workshop, as well as information on other engineering organizations that are taking an interest in nanotechnology.

Special Note: Nanotechnology will be the focal point of one of the many technical tracks that will be featured during ASME's 2001 Congress and Exhibition in November. Nanotechnology will also be the subject of several tutorials to be given during the conference, which will take place in New York City from November 11-16, 2001.

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