Intel's chief technology officer Justin Rattner stated that man and machine will live together in peace and harmony by 2050, in a keynote speech during the Intel developer forum (IDF).
Not only that, he also speculated 'that we may be approaching an inflection point where the rate of technology advancements is accelerating at an exponential rate, and machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason, in the not so distant future.' So much for the human race, as anything smarter than homo sapiens will certainly put an end to mankind's irrational exuberances. He put a robot hand on display which can sense humans and its surroundings using an electric field, the way fish do it. An autonomous cleaning robot was also shown.
Rattner also demonstrated wireless resonant energy link (WREL), which is being researched at Intel. He showed off a light bulb lighting up with no cord attached. WREL sends power using coupled resonators, which send and receive energy using a natural frequency. Some day in the future, just holding a notebook with a receive resonator close to a transmit resonator will recharge its batteries. Intel wants products running on wireless power. Now imagine reasoning robots walking around in 2050 with no battery problems - that sounds more like a threat than a promise.
But things get even better - Intel is researching so-called catoms, which are horribly small miniature robots. These little blighters will be able to change the shape of a gadget. A laptop may be shrunk to the size of something that will fit in jacket pocket, take on the design of a phone if you're using it to chat up a date and will morph into regular, keyboard-equipped notebook when you need it. The boffin responsible for Emerging Materials marchitecture at Intel explained a new way to make silicon hemispheres by means of photolithography, which is a prerequisite for making catoms. Photolithography is a process used to make chips. Dr. Garner added Intel is looking how to make 3D transistors, instead of bog-standard planar transistors which make up a chip. He also claimed Intel is looking beyond silicon and CMOS. X |