I just saw what may be the coolest Star Wars fan effort that I have seen before over at Wired. The San Diego Tripoli Rocket Association built a working X-Wing rocket. The guns don’t fire, it is not manned, and the flight is not controlled but R2’s head still spins around and he beeps.

The 23 foot long X-Wing was took around 2,500 hours to build and cost about $7,000. They did not have a blueprint to go by but they attempted to follow the 15 inch models used for the X-Wings in the Star Wars movies.

This week IBM announced two major breakthroughs in the world of nanotechnology. Their work has the potential to increase the storage capacity of computers by 1,000 and decrease entire computer chips to a microscopic level.

IBM’s scientists estimate that this technology could begin to appear in commercial products in about a decade, but it is still just a very rough estimate at this time.

With a crazy microscope they have been able to analyze single iron atoms and detect how they respond to being faced in a specific direction under the stress of a magnet. Being able to control a single atom magnetically and having the ability to make it face one direction or another at will lets that atom represent a 1 or a 0. This ability allows an atom to store digital information.

I don’t think I can word the second breakthrough any better or easier than it is in Information Week’s article.

IBM’s second breakthrough comes out of its research lab in Zurich, Switzerland, where scientists have developed a molecular switch that can change state without disrupting the molecule’s outer shell.

In theory, this will allow molecular switches to be connected to, and networked with, other molecules. The discovery paves the way for modular molecular logic components that could eventually replace silicon-based CMOS chip technology.

I think all of this is absolutely awesome. We’re moving towards a Metal Gear-esque world where people will have nanomachines flowing through their bloodstreams allowing them to communicate with each other through the machines and dialing into codec frequencies. Yeah.
There is still a huge amount of progress to be made before anything close to that is possible but this is a giant step in the right direction. Even for computers in general, this is crazy like Terminator stuff.
Any time I read something about a scientific advance that’s along the lines of “Science fiction becomes science fact lolz!” I am amazed.

Hammacher Schlemmer who sell the R2-D2 Home Theater system I talked about a little bit ago now also sell a remote controlled R2-D2 Web cam. R2 has a 628 x 528 pixel web cam that can wirelessly send real-time audio and video to your computer. In addition to it’s lightsaber-shaped remote control, you have remote access to R2-D2 from anywhere in the world via laptop or desktop PC.
Sensors on R2 keep him from falling off tables and whatnot while you’re driving him around taking pictures, videos, and audio recordings. To top things off he has 11 different R2-D2/astromech droid sounds that he can make from the original Star Wars soundtrack.
The price is $349.95.