Atomically Precise Mfg
Nearly all of the presentations from our recent CRN nano/bio conference in Tucson have been uploaded to this page. This week, we're reporting on some of those talks and offering additional thoughts.
We began yesterday with my discourse on "Circles of Concern." Today we'll continue with Jim Von Ehr's presentation on "Atomically Precise Manufacturing" (open PowerPoint). You can click on each image below to enlarge it.
Jim opened by describing how he founded his company ten years ago with the expectation that by now they would be close to the goal of exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing. It has taken more time and been more difficult than he anticipated, but he still believes the goal is within reach -- except now he's no longer willing to put a time frame on it.
Today Jim owns and manages four companies, each working on a facet of nanotechnology research, development, and commercialization.
The focus of Zyvex Labs is on atomically precise manufacturing with the eventual goal of producing low-cost factories (nanofactories) that can quickly and inexpensively build customized, powerful, low-cost products.
As you can see below, their intention is, at some point, to be a producer and provider of nanofactories to other manufacturers. Imagine the value of cornering that market!
So, it may be a winding pathway, but Jim Von Ehr hopes to lead the way in achieving the dream of "digital matter."
Tomorrow: "What could a nanofactory build?"
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
for some reason, I can't open http://www.crnano.org/conf07sched.htm - my attemps resulted in "Timeout waiting for server response" error. Is the problem with my connection or something is wrong with CRN web server?
Posted by: Dan S | September 19, 2007 at 06:35 AM
It opens fine for me, Dan. Anybody else having trouble?
Posted by: Mike Treder, CRN | September 19, 2007 at 07:08 AM
It appears that problem exists only for my location. When connected via public proxy server, everything is fine. These presentations are great!
BTW, I found a strange thing while trying resolve connection problem: There is a number of places worldwide where crnano.org is not accessible (I tried public trace/ping services). Reminds me of your post about Great China Firewall. I found that actually only some locations in China can't access crnano.org. So may be this is a technical problem, not political?
Posted by: Dan S | September 19, 2007 at 12:06 PM