See those tiny dots in the picture above? They are tiny robots, aimed at mass producing electronics in the near future. Built by a company called SRI International, they have found a way to control them using magnets.

The secret is to deploy them on a circuit board where the magnetic fields can be localized so that each ca be controlled without affecting the others nearby. It can be maneuvered with impressive precision too, so it makes sense that it may be able to assemble electronics on a mass scale some day. [SRI via IEEE Spectrum]