Inspired by musical greeting cards, DARPA demands tiny, cheap, self-modifying systems

One can't help but see a very clear instance of the triple constraint problem in action here

What do the first general-purpose programmable electronic computer and greeting cards that play musical jingles have in common? DARPA cites both of them as the inspiration for a project seeking low-resource computing paradigms to be used on future battlefields.

DARPA on Friday put out a request for information (RFI) for new low-resource computing (LRC) paradigms and processes that haven't been utilized yet in microscale systems not unlike the tiny chip-and-battery combos found in greeting cards and children's books. Apparently, thinking about those and the 80th anniversary of the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) has DARPA wondering why more useful things can't be made in a tiny form factor.

"The physical and financial cost of computation has plummeted so far that it is routinely embedded in disposable novelties," the RFI said, pointing...

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