Nanotech innovations in information technology
Sulphur atoms form "dancing triangles" on copper
Scientists say nanotechnology will make computers faster, tinier and smarter.
Nanotech might make possible clear, instant communications across great distances. And there are obvious benefits to that. Progress in information technology also has the potential to help humanity in less direct ways. That’s according to Harvard chemist George Whitesides
George Whitesides: A lot of our energy consumption is, in a certain sense, optional. That is, we choose to fly for a business meeting to San Francisco, or we choose to ship goods from place to place. And one of the important jobs … that nanotechnology will do will be to extend yet further the revolution in information technology that makes it possible to ship information rather than people or things.
But, Whitesides said, as computer memory becomes smaller, cheaper and faster, there’s a potential downside.
George Whitesides: And that kind of advance in information storage and retrieval does lead to . . . for me, concerns about privacy and individuality in the future. But that is very much a question of how society chooses to use information technology enabled by nanotechnology, rather than the nanotechnology per se.
Thanks today to the National Science Foundation.
