Thursday, February 28, 2008

The Morph

The Morph, apart from being a spirit world claimed to exist by Stuart Wilde, is apparently also a word some people use for technology which might become possible one day using nanotechnology.

Remember this is pure science fiction. They present it in the video as if it's stuff that's already in prototype stage.


4 comments:

Alex said...

Remember when you first saw T2 and wondered about the morphing terminator. Remember when you saw Babylon 5, and the aliens had "organic" space ships whose wing profile and body shape changed in flight. Come to think of it, ever think about Hudson, the chameleon colored Rolls Royce in the old Gerry Anderson puppet show.

There seem to be two ways nano-tech is going. One is in powders and fibers. The other is the nano-bot technology (The Borg, like Seven of Nine in Voyager).

One thing that is worrying is how nano-powders will affect our bodies. How dissimilar to asbestos fibers or lycopodium powder is it? Will it cause lung problems? Will it latch into blood cells?

I do like the idea of self repairing nano bots which can combine into whatever macro cells are needed for the job at hand. Even if you just think of an ASIC which can rearrange itself. Are the days of FPGA/CPLD technology limited...

Is it SF, or is it a design specification? Looks like a video targeted at the investment community.

Bert said...

"Looks like a video targeted at the investment community"

While this is definitely a sales pitch, I think the message is Green, but not U$-green. For one, I can't picture Nokia in need of money...

Also, cell phones are being targeted more and more as a major source of pollution by environmentalists, and Nokia has been making a lot of efforts to alleviate "Green" concerns. From fully recycled phones to reduction or elimination of toxic ingredients.

They also are currently toting around a prototype of a phone equipped with biometric and atmospheric sensors, which they promote as the ultimate tool for gathering environmental data, and one can recognize that line of thinking in the video.

Many other technology trends depicted in there, such as flexible electronics, are also closer to us than they appear. Yet it will be a long time before we see it all merged into one product, if ever. And it always strikes me that such pitches conveniently omit the power source. Oh, yeah... I keep forgetting: all will be powered by piezo-garments.

But, for now, the ultimate morphing tool remains Lego! ;-)

Anonymous said...

Superhydrophobic. That's what I was as a child. I wouldn't go anywhere near water.

I think bert's interpretation must be close to truth. After Apple's introduction of iPhone and all the publicity they got from it, Nokia was hard pressed to quickly come up with something way ahead of the iPhone to communicate to the masses that they are still the king of these kinds of gadgets. Even if only vaporware. And green is a hot topic now so they went there.

I read somewhere that they did demonstrate some early concept prototype of it in a trade show recently. Obviously not with the feature set depicted in this video.

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

That spirit world does not exist. I clicked on the slow connection option, and on the next page is a dead link leading to a 404. Quod erat demonstrandum.
(Translation: "On a four-wheel dirt bike wandered the monsters".)