from Wired via NanotechWatch.org

New fiber-optic networks increase internet speed up to 40GB per second

A new nanotechnology that eliminates network bottlenecks could help create a web surfers’ paradise that is 100 times faster than today’s internet.

Fiber-optic networks capable of sending information at 10 Gbps or 40 Gbps are being rolled out around the world and under the oceans to connect everyone to everything.

The new technology, described in a paper published Aug. 11 in the scientific journal Nano Letters, uses buckyballs glued together by a custom polymer, providing a way to create an optical switch.

from CNN

Kurzweil writes of millions of blood cell-sized robots, which he calls “nanobots,” that will keep us forever young by swarming through the body, repairing bones, muscles, arteries and brain cells. Improvements to our genetic coding will be downloaded via the Internet. We won’t even need a heart.

Immortality would leave little standing in current society, in which the inevitability of death is foundational to everything from religion to retirement planning. The planet’s natural resources would be greatly stressed, and the social order shaken.

An interesting development along the road to molecular computing, although the article itself interprets Moore’s Law too strictly. While there are physical limitations to current fabrication techniques, computer chip technology will continue to shrink and complexify, jumping to new substrates whenever necessary. Silicon is but one of many elements available for molecular computation.

from ZDNet

Researchers from the Palo Alto, Calif.-based computing giant have created devices called crossbar latches that can be used to perform calculations in microprocessors, the same function silicon transistors now have.

“This is the final piece of the puzzle for building a molecular computer,” said Phil Kuekes, senior computer architect and primary inventor at HP’s Quantum Science Research (QSR) unit.
(emphasis added)

A key attribute of the switches is that the junction between the wires can be as small as 2 nanometers.

(Photo credit: HP, via ZDNet)