(book was 1998 but portions were published earlier)
There's a fantastic sci fi book called "Metaplanetary" by Tony Daniel where he invented this and many other fantastic ideas. Imagine that there are billions of little computational nodes around you in the dust ("the grist"). Imagine sentient computer programs, who have human rights. Imagine what people would do who don't believe they are really sentient - yes, they'd torture or kill them. He has some sequels but last time I looked he hadn't published the conclusion book in a long time. He worked in IT in some area. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/116171.Metaplanetary. I'll agree with the reviews there that the book starts up a little hard to follow, but then it races away.
But they still have your IP address which they can use as a signal!
The introduction [1] suggests that lenses have been lagging sensors in miniaturization.
> While sensors with submicron pixels do exist, further miniaturization has been prohibited by the fundamental limitations of conventional optics.
Sounds like the university PR-department was smoking something.
[1] https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2021/11/29/researcher...
Still very impressive technology, but, a very misleading headline.
