How cool we all thought we were walking around with handsets the size of bricks, only heavier.

I love the tiny little mobile that I have now - it fits in the palm of my hand.

Whenever I have to run between Terminal 2 and Terminal 1 at Gatwick lugging my laptop, I find myself wishing for a similar innovation for my computer. And it seems my dream may soon come true.

Engineers from the University of Edinburgh are working to make tiny supercomputers which fit in the palm of the hand a reality. And they have recently had a major scientific breakthrough. They examined the behaviour of wires 1,000 times thinner than a human hair and came up with some ground-breaking findings.

These have been used to devised a tool to help combat the problems that can arise from wiring microchips much smaller than the ones that are used in most computing equipment today. This is expected to have real benefits for advancing medical technology.

Engineers behind the project also hope this new-found knowledge will eventually lead to high street availability of hand-held PCs and mobile phones as powerful as laptops.

If you want to create a powerful computer the size of a mobile phone, the challenge is to develop much smaller microchips using thinner wires than are currently used.

The study saw Edinburgh researchers team up with colleagues from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and Italy's University of Rome to look at how tiny wires behave when they are manipulated.

With the help of computers, they found that wires on a nanoscale —measured in millionths of a millimetre — behave quite differently to bigger wires. When researchers tried to bend the tiny wires into rings, they took on very weird shapes.

Edinburgh's School of Engineering and Electronics' Dr Michael Zaiser said: 'Basically, we just tried to look at what would happen if we deformed a wire that is very, very small. What we found is when we made these wires smaller and smaller they started to behave in a very funny way.'

You have to love a scientific sound bite like that, right?

But many people are sceptical about the commercialisation of nanotechnology, saying smaller is just not needed yet and the focus should remain on getting today's technology to work properly. I can see their point.

Using smartphones to surf the Web remains an exercise in frustration at the best of times.

There are differing connections, few viewable pages and a lack of common interface to provide easy access to all. More work is needed here before we even start thinking nano.

Of course, the area of medicine is a different story. Nanotechnology has great potential in this area. The US National Human Genome Research Institute awarded the University of California Irvine's Henry Samueli School of Engineering a grant of US $2.18 million earlier this month to explore the application of nanotechnology advancements in DNA sequencing.

DNA analysis provides vital information about the unique biology of each individual and allows physicians to pinpoint conditions a patient might be susceptible to and customise prescription medication.

The goal is to create a faster and less expensive method of sequencing DNA so it can be used as part of routine health care. Scientists want a method enabling them to make the entire genetic composition of an individual available for $1,000. Bargain! It currently costs about $5 million.

Professor of electrical engineering and computer science H. Kumar Wickramasinghe is leading the research.

He said: 'If we could make DNA sequencing and testing available for all patients during medical exams by taking a simple blood test, we could directly impact the future of health care and create opportunities to improve a patient's quality of life.'

It sounds a bit Star Trek to me, but I am sure we will see this widespread use of nanotechnology-enabled DNA sequencing during our lifetime. The real challenge will be to get the cost way below the £1,000 if we want it covered on the NHS at Nobles.


>>Sherrilynne Starkie is the managing partner of Strive Public Relations, a communications consultancy in the Isle of Man. She provides her views on business and technology each week in Tech Talk. Visit her business blog, Strive Notes for frequent updates.
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