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SUMMARY:Are Sensor Networks a first step towards the Diamond Age? - Prof J
 ulie McCann - Imperial College London
DTSTART:20170315T161500Z
DTEND:20170315T171500Z
UID:TALK69480@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:David Greaves
DESCRIPTION:In Neal Stephenson's award winning novel\, The Diamond age\, h
 e describes programmable nanotechnology that can collaborate and form thin
 gs. Today we have chirping\, self-organising\, adaptive and intelligent ti
 ny computers that are beginning to enter both the market and people’s ho
 mes\, performing various monitoring and control duties. From Google’s se
 lf-drive cars to the walls of modern office blocks\, these simple devices 
 are talking to each other in intelligent ways\, mimicking the collective b
 ehaviour of insect colonies to overcome individual failures or changes in 
 the local environment. After a decade as an academic pursuit\, there is no
 w a strong belief that these could enable whole new programmable architect
 ures\, where processing power is pushed out to these small devices in the 
 field. But are we getting ahead of ourselves? Whilst the technology advanc
 es\, underlying research into their behaviours\, security\, reliability an
 d resistance to failure mustn’t be left behind. In this talk Julie McCan
 n will introduce some of her work in this field and discuss the possibilit
 y of a technological trajectory towards the aforementioned Diamond Age.\n
LOCATION:Lecture Theatre 1\, Computer Laboratory
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