Watch this video.
I spent a long while trying to find the right video to demonstrate a point, a lot of them were getting silly with the potential applications. This one only makes one, “You’re phone could change into a laptop then back into a phone”. No it couldn’t, unless you phone was already the size of laptop, or you wanted a laptop that can only do what a phone does. Programmable matter looks like it can change shape and colour, not mass and certainly not into a different component.
“Create a new media type“. The video imagines furniture, business meeting rapid-prototyping and art. I imagine a bank of these Claytronic pools being the ultimate in access to museum collections. I imagine the conference papers of the future being about 3D digitisation, the issues of conservation about scanning objects to an atomic level and whether people can claim copyright on a temporary near-identical object even if it dissolves back into a grey goo.
What would the ethics be? This could change every idea about material culture we know, especially the tenet that says being in the presence of an object is better than any digital image. Well, how about a being in the presence of a digital 3D solid replica that you could smash open and have a look inside and then hit the reset button?
To which I would say, “what’s the point?” How much more would we rely upon narrative for the experience?
Certainly claytronics is mass preserving. However, the density can change, so if the material is all packed densely it will take up less volume - allowing it to change from a phone to a smallish laptop.
In all seriousness, really? Surely you mean it would turn a phone shaped device into a laptop shaped device, but it will still be the same device. Yeah, it would be useful for my phone to grow a keyboard.
How about screens? Will they expand a screen size and resolution?