Revision as of 13:58, 1 April 2015

Utility fog is a concept devised by J. Storrs Hall. Consult wikipedia for a basic introduction.

Utility fog is not the easiest product to create (well the mechanics may be not too complicated but the programming and system design like data transmission and fluid dynamics emulation is going to be very difficult) As many others it's not a product to expect early on.

Utility fog must not be confused with the concept of universal assemblers. They may superficially look similar because they both can feature legged mobility. Its not designed to replicate or even do mechanosynthesis.

When it does recompose microcomponents it's not utility fog but Microcomponent maintainance units (which lack the wits for fluid dynamics and have fewer (eight) shorter and sturdier linking appendages. A specialised nanofactory will normally work faster than them but can't do live maintainance.

In many cases it may be better to choose products with less general purpose capabilities. This can increase safety. Also more specialized products may be available sooner than fully fledged utility fog.

Modes

In many cases you will just have a batch of utility fog with wich you can play around with (e.g. smart modelling clay) you can safely handle it like any other unknown non volatile substance. But with enough fog you can turn the situation inside out and immerse yourself - potentially exposing you to a lot of fun - and risk. Depending on how far you dare to go you can choose from the naive or fog mode then (Terms from J. Storrs Halls book "Nanofuture").

Naive mode

The units fill the floor densely and rise up to form some ********* when requested or does **** *** when some malicious computer virus took control.

Fog mode

The units fills a whole space and immerses all present humans and animals. A bubble around the head of breathing life forms is proposed.
It seems not too unlikely that software bugs can kill people in several horrible ways.

It's yet unclear how transparent a strictly periodic undistorted utility fog crystal will be. If it's sufficiently transparent then whenever fluid dynamic activity is performed interesting optical distortions may occur.

Transmission of the image one would see without the fog that is present outside the fogs surface to an holographic display inside the bubbles seems very SciFi. Very high broadband communication through a dynamically moving near homogenous "nanobot crystal" For a truly holographic display (not just 3D) thorough control of the wave field in the visible light spectrum is needed both in sensing and generating.

Some far spaced inhomogenities are the necessary ping-pong ball sized control computers. If the rest of the utility fog turns out to be transparent those computers may hide themselves with the light wave field control mentioned before making it essentially an invisibility cloak.

Virtual things (only visible or touchable too) that are stored and shared are still real in a new kind of sense but malicious parties can try to make many believe things that are truly not real (for political, promotional, monetary or other reasons) which is a real problem.

Surface smoothing

Utility fog need to carry lots of platelets around to emulate a nicely flat surface otherewise its surfaces would be porcupined with not too blunt open linking appendages.

Security

Accidental intake

Inhalation or ingestion seems to be a serious risk.

If accidentally inhalated (beside the obvious issue of physical contact that may cause inflammation) utility fog will probably hinder breathing because it obstructs direct airflow and maybe further hinder breathing because it's not flowing fast enough. It depends on how responsive the fog is whether you feel it or not. Early versions will probably be distinctly palpable.

In case of a system error the proposed disconnection to tennis pingpong or marble sized balls is ok for outside the body but fatal in the lung. Ingested pieces that are deactivated that way (marble sized) may not pose much problems.

If out of any reason the surface hull is lost and fluidity turned off you are basically in an iron maiden wth an astronomical number of microscale needles - this situation doesn't sound too good - especially if you have eye contact.

For a bit more security for cases when the funny bubble around the head breaks down or doesn't lock on to your neighbours dogs head one could implement:

• a minimal surface curvature (does not protect the eyes)
• a flow in speed limit for deep and slim crevices
• sensing of humid surfaces or localized airflow and automatic backoff
• avoid filling up spaces completey when not absolutely necessary

• Todo: estimate how much resistance to airflow utility fog with and without capping will pose.
• Todo: check maybe existing literature on the effects of diamond to human mucosal

Accidental environmental release

As with all AP products splinter prevention is an important issue. The legs must not break under any normal circumstances (hammer attack, gun bullet) but turn/flex away. Only projectiles with the speed of space debris (LEO orbital speeds) will not be handlable even with the best design. Cleanup?

If chunks must break of (e.g. due to high force shearing) they should be as big as possible.

Since utility fog is designed to be able to come apart at any interface at any time. A hardware mechanism in every unit is reqired that prevents it from letting go at all or most of its (twelve) linking appendages at the same time or else software bugs will undoubtably lead to massive spill of lost of units that irrecoverably left the machine phase.

Possible use cases

• furniture: Usage of products made from special purpose AP metamaterials instead something so general purpose as utility fog have the advantage that you can be sure that it won't do any nasty stuff with you or your stuff. Example: In any configuration of a bookshelf you want it to hold books. You may even want it normally to be disconnected from a microcomponent redistribution network and the internet but on the long run this may be unavoidable. An offline switch may be desirable.
• terrain independent cloud like wheelchairs
• crash-cushions - outside for unlucky pedestrians inside as replacement for the current nose breaking airbags.
• malleable computer interface - to design your nice or nasty stuff
• classical robotic manipulations
• telepresence - but AP suits and muliseeshells work just fine and are less overkill - in both cases full- semi- and virtual reality become mixed up thoroughly. Recognition signs (like recycling symbols on plastic products) might be a good idea - so that in most cases you know what you are dealing with.
• ...

Issues

Since AP products and today's non AP stuff will heavily mix Often and regular complete retraction of macroscopic structures (cars, object holding furniture, walls, rooms) probably won't be done all too often. Rather only in times when you permanently change your place of living.

External references

• Wikipedia article: [1]