The BBC reports that computer science professors Todd Mowry and Seth Goldstein of Carnegie Mellon University have conceived a way for people to “teleport” a solid 3-D animated recreation of themselves in real-time over the Internet.

Within a human generation, they believe we will be able to duplicate 3-D objects using something they call “synthetic atoms.”

The technology is similar to “claytronics,” an animation technique perhaps best known for its use with Gollum in the Lord of the Rings. The object appears to be real and lifelike.

Key to this is an emergent technology called “nano-dust” — atomic-sized objects that can be programmed to bind to each other and move. Right now, that’s just a laboratory speculation, but there are no laws of physics or engineering that will prevent it from being realized within the next two decades.

The professors are doing “proof of concept” at a much larger scale, working with objects the size of table tennis balls. But nanotechnology engineers and scientists are confident that anything we can do today at a ping-pong ball’s size we will be able to do at the molecular level within 20 years or so. (Indeed, prototype molecular machines have already been built.)

The professors expect this will eventually enable people who are talking to forget that they’re in different rooms or even different cities. Think about that. It could change human communications as much as the telephone.

Let’s look at the significance for a moment. First, once again the technological tidal wave is racing ahead faster than science fiction. Recently, we saw in the Star Wars movie Revenge of the Sith a kind of virtual conference table where the Jedi Masters Council could meet as if all in the same room, even though they might be light years apart.

While we can’t currently handle the problem of faster-than-light communication (and according to Einstein we never will, but who knows?), in a recent e-mail update I talked about technology emerging from the labs right now that will enable that Jedi conference within just a few years.

Now we are faced with something even more radical: A way to create actual three-dimensional physical objects that closely resemble us. Of course, these won’t be people, but over time they might make for pretty good simulations.

While the notion of having trillions of self-assembling molecules model a person in real time may seem bizarre, it is based on facts that are generally accepted among nanotechnology researchers. First, these microscopic machines will have tremendous intelligence and memory several decades from now. That will enable them to instantly understand how they should be placed relative to each other.

Second, I expect that these will be implemented initially as follows: There will be a transparent box or tube full of these molecules. Some will be white, while others will be colored. The colored ones will hide behind the white ones so as to seem invisible except when they’re needed to display a form. (This will greatly reduce the need for rapid migration of molecules.)

By using rapid migration of molecules over short distances, and then flipping surface areas between the display of white molecules and the display of colored molecules (three primary colors would enable the various secondary colors), it will be possible to create the illusion of very rapid movement in real time.

While the professors believe that the first applications for this technology will be in business conferences, I expect that the emergence of this technology may instead be driven by the entertainment industry. It will make games far more lifelike and exciting, and enable meetings with friends and relatives at a distance that are more fulfilling and friendly.

Not only that, but these same simulations could give physical embodiment to artificial computer personalities such as the “Philip K. Dick” robotics software simulation I encountered at the recent Next Fest in Chicago. (The head of the FedEx Institute of Technology has invited me to visit Memphis, Tenn., in order to extensively converse with the robot and explore its limitations, and I intend to do so.)

This illustrates how converging technologies in communications and nanotechnology will give us radically new experiences.

To your profitable future,

Jonathan Kolber
September 20, 2006

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