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We humans are still struggle to reconcile primal instincts with pure intellect and hope to figure out some day how the Universe works. Along the intricate path of supreme knowledge we come across visionary concepts that may change our understanding of the world in a radical manner. Things like these happened with the introduction of Einstein’s theory of relativity or the advent of the computer age and it’s bound to happen again with the imminent invasion of the programmable matter.

Make online magazine informs that in the final keynote of the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) held last Thursday, Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer, shed some light on the advancements made with programmable matter. Intel strongly believes that programmable matter will radically transform the technology of the next four decades.

Rattner explained that programmable matter would consist of tiny glass spheres with processing power and photovoltaic components for generating electricity to run the tiny circuitry. These particles called catoms would move relative to one another via electrostatic. What you see in the picture are just visible-scale replicas. The catoms are supposed to be only a few micrometers wide.

Just think of it as "the ultimate form of digital printing," only this time we’re talking about 3D printing. "You literally could make an object of any imaginable shape, or design, and simply 'hit the print command' and the matter would take that shape,” Rattner revealed in an interview for ZDnet. Rattner reminded us that the great Sci-Fi writer Arthur C. Clarke once said that “any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.” “And that's what programmable matter is – it's a technology so advanced it might as well be magic,” Rattner said.

Now, I wonder if these catoms are self-replicating like nanobots. If so, we only need to buy a single catom in order to conjure any object we desire, and that should be pretty cheap, hopefully. Wait, can catoms take the shape of a breathing, thinking human?