Towards a better way of computing: a return from bits to atoms via physics and biology Foreword to the first special issue on bio-inspired computing

摘要

Several emerging technologies related to the pervasiveness of computing, combined with advances in nano- and biotechnology, enable spontaneous linkages between people, systems and infrastructures to create "living" ecosystems that can configure and reconfigure themselves as needed. Such progress in computing has transformed our world to the extent that it can be argued that a very large number of entities now exist virtually in a universe of networked information, with distinct parallels to the universe we can normally apprehend through natural and extended human senses. These novel computing systems are bridging the physical and the virtual, merging us with our "things", transforming the way we live and work, and augmenting our abilities in unprecedented ways. Examples range from smart homes, grids and cities to self-reconfiguring manufacturing plants and self-deploying emergency task-forces, all relying on myriad sensors, mobile devices, software agents and human users that would build an ecosystem bringing the right skill, tool, or competence at the right time for the task at hand on the sole basis of local rules and peer-to-peer communication. Specifically, production processes are information-rich, and the dynamics of the information infrastructure is the tool for carrying it out both at individual locations and across the global environment. The electronic linking implies that work matter (or critical parts of it) is being transferred across virtual locations through a process which requires the intimacy between the physical and the virtual worlds to be restored.