Is anyone else itchy?

Not smart... 

Per IE, the current “smart dust industry,” made up of tech companies like Emerson Process Management and Hewlett-Packard, was valued at around $115 million in 2022. By 2032, it’s expected to reach nearly $400 million.

While various militaries are keen on developing smart dust for intelligence reasons, much of the present research is carried in university and corporate labs. An Israeli firm called Stardust Solutions, for example, drew concerns from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists when it announced its intentions of releasing a variation on smart dust to block out the Sun — involving inert particular matter in conjunction with an atmospheric monitoring system — in violation of international geoengineering laws.

While the tech is pretty dystopian as it is, there’s a lot of room for improvement. The need to interface with a centralized data-processing unit, for example, means the tiny units can’t travel too far from their human controller. Their usable lifespan is likewise pretty short, though that’s changing with innovations in energy-harvesting capabilities via light, vibrations, and electromagnetic fields.

One thing’s abundantly clear: now might be a good time to invest in an air purifier.

READ:  https://futurism.com/smart-dust-nanobots