Programmable matter is really fascinating. I've been working on making an inductor-actuated mechanical display for the unsighted, and actually came across an earlier iteration of the device in the article in my research. I'm guessing the power draw of the magnets was too much for the scale.
"Armies of mobile cubes could temporarily repair bridges or buildings during emergencies, or raise and reconfigure scaffolding for building projects. They could assemble into different types of furniture or heavy equipment as needed. And they could swarm into environments hostile or inaccessible to humans, diagnose problems, and reorganize themselves to provide solutions."
This is simply insanely cool. I doubt it would work for all those applications at the moment, but nevertheless it's awesome. Also, a potentional step towards nanorobots that could become a larger robot or something along these lines?
Looking at the video, they don't look accurate at all. And I'm still wondering what they'll actually do. At the moment it just looks like a cool toy.
But I imagine they'd hook it up similar to those flying nano-robots.
It seriously looks like those micro swarm robots that do tons of useful things from sci-fi is becoming reality. Pretty awesome.
Reminds me of the black cubes that show up from doctor who. So... I don't trust these now haha