Crab computing: building a biological machine

"BIZ50MAG.COM": Crab computing: building a biological machine - EE Times (blog)

Crab computing: building a biological machine Sylvie Barak 4/19/2012 4:42 PM EDT The buzz around cloud computing is oh so 2011! That’s because the latest and greatest in terms of computational advancements (or should we say "sidesteps") is a sort of biological concept "computer" based on swarms of soldier crabs. Japanese researchers from Kobe University came up with the creepy, crawly concept after reading research from the 1980s which posited that one could theoretically build a computer using the movement of billiard balls—with a bit of Newtonian physics and an idealized, friction-free environment thrown in. That research, by Edward Fredkin and Tommaso Toffoli , used the billiard balls’ motion as a substitute for electronic signals, with researchers looking at how the balls collided into one another or emerged from a series of gates in a predictable direction and at a ce...

Full article: http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/other/4371374/Cr...