Even though you'll read this in December, at the time of this writing, it's Oct. 31, Halloween. And today, because he's nine, my kid is Spiderman. In a few years, at age 12, say, I'm sure he'll wear the red and green plastic monster masks -- the type you see at Wal-Mart.

But for now, he loves Spiderman. In fact, he has several large-format, digitally printed Spider- man posters (VUTEk and NUR tradeshow print samples) on his walls. Later, when he's a teen, perhaps I can convince him to wear the scariest costume of all: brown pants, a button-down plaid shirt and roundish eyeglasses.

Why is this costume scary? It's the Bill Gates power-geek costume. Why is Bill Gates scary? Consider the past 10 years' technological events, and the changes these events, have brought about, and you'll surely notice that the power held by the people who initiated the events -- Bill Gates, Steve Case, John Chambers, Michael Dell, Lou Gerstner and Steve Jobs -- is a bit scary, or at least intimidating. More so, you'll agree, than all nine reels of Friday the 13th or Wal-Mart's red and green masks.

It's unnerving to visualize the massive changes these seemingly innocuous geeks have brought about, but this isn't necessarily bad news (remember DOS?). Plus, if you fast-forward, you'll see that it's even more unnerving to learn what the new generation is bringing down the pike: digital technology blended with nanotechnology.

You're seeing an atomic-microscope's view of an oddity -- controlled-growth, multi-dimensional carbon nanotubes -- the technology of the future. This is the stuff behind tomorrow's super-miniature computer chips, the tiny chips that will allow you to watch Junk Yard Wars (or MTV) on your wristwatch. The photo shows nanotubes as created by researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) materials science lab (Troy, NY). Grown in patterns, the carbon nanotubes will find uses in next-generation computer chips, integrated circuits, micro-electromechanical (MEMS) devices and micro-electronic lighting (think electronic-display signs). RPI professors Pulickel Ajayan and Ganapathiraman Ramanath developed the controlled-growth method by forcing nanotubes to grow perpendicular to a silica-coated substrate. This, coupled with a gas-delivery system, charges carbon nanotubes to grow in directions prescribed by the scientists. The work exceeds standard nanotube development because Ajayan and Ramanath can precisely direct and control the nanotube growth. Interestingly, this work is partly funded by the Office of Naval Research, which promotes science and technology programs of the United States Navy and Marine Corps through 450 schools, universities, government laboratories and organizations.

Today, computer-based digital codes reside in all transistor-operated technologies -- desk and laptop, the Internet, cell phones, television, global-positioning navigation systems (GPS), satellite radio systems and, on a lesser scale, the algorithms that position the ink nozzles on your digital printer.

Digital codes can be utilized in planet-sized projects or, because it is just ones and zeros, the applicable technology can be the size of spider toes. And, because of the blending of digital and nano, expect to be amazed in the not-to-distant future. Nanotechnology will have digitally controlled machines dancing on pinheads.

For example, nanotechnology researchers at the University of New Mexico are studying molecular wires, 130 times smaller than present silicon circuits, that create dipole molecules. In turn, they're experimenting with laser systems to turn the dipoles on and off. (Digitally speaking, when the current is on, it has the value of 1; when the current is off, it has a value of 0.) Using lasers, they hope to reach an on/off pulse (switching) rate of one-quadrillionth of a second (a femtosecond). They believe this switching speed, combined with the molecular-wire technology, will allow engineers to build tiny computers with blazing operating speeds. With this system, researchers believe computer engineers can fit 16,900 nano-devices in the same area of occupancy as one of today's silicon devices.

These photos show the Litrex Corp. (Pleasanton, CA) Piezo Micro Deposition™ (PMD) equipment. Litrex, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cambridge Display Technology (CDT), Oxford, U.K. and Fremont, CA, originated as a research program within Gretag Imaging (Regensdorf, Switzerland and San Jose, CA). Litrex focuses on electronics, color displays and the PMD equipment.

Because LEP manufacturing requires a mechanism that applies material in an intelligent manner, the precise-functioning PMD equipment is a primary element of the fabrication processes. Using piezo printheads, the PMD applies inkjet technology by dispensing exact droplets of fluid at critical locations.

Last year, Bell Labs, working with Lucent Technologies, announced its prototype of an organic transistor manufactured from carbon, not the usual silicon. The transistor is the length of a single molecule (two to six atoms in a row) and, when fully developed, it, too, will allow the creation of faster, more compact computer chips.

Intel, whose chips now measure 130 nanometers, is working to reduce that size to 90 nanometers. Intel's scientists believe the latter unit will carry 21/2 times more transistors than its predecessors.

It gets better. One month ago, IBM successfully built a circuit where "individual molecules move across an atomic surface like toppling dominoes." This system, called a "molecule cascade," enabled IBM's scientists to construct digital-logic elements 260,000 times smaller than today's chips. They say 190 billion could fit on top of a standard pencil eraser.

Running back up the Lilliputian scale, here's an interesting story I picked up from CNN. It deals with computer-driven technology. The story focuses on two scientists -- one in Boston, the other in London -- experimenting with computer-generated "phantom" forces. In the experiment, each scientist picked up a linked, computer-actuated "cube" and moved it so that, through an Internet hook-up, one felt the force the other exerted on the object. The scientists said they could actually feel the cube being pushed in their hand as another person exerted force against it. It's Internet robotics in its infancy. Imagine the applications in lunar mining or long-distance surgery.

Most interesting of late, however, is Cambridge Display Technology's (CDT) acquisition of the Oxford, U.K.-based (and Fremont, CA-based) research activities of Opsys and its announcement of roll-up television screens. The Oct. 28 press release says, "Two British companies said on Monday they would join forces to become a world leader in the technology of glowing plastics, which by 2005, should yield the first roll-up computer and TV screens."

Clarity Display Systems (CDS), Wilsonville, OR, a provider of digital visual messaging (DVM) systems, recently installed 14 of its 40-in. Wildcat™ AP/LCD™ rear-projection displays at the North and South terminals of the Ted Stevens Anchorage (AK) International Airport. They are a part of the airport's Multi-User Flight Information Display System (MUFIDS) installation.

CDS has also introduced its Bobcat Advanced Performance Liquid Crystal Display™, a 40-in., direct-view display that utilizes an LCD panel manufactured by Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. It will accept high-resolution inputs from VGA (640 x 480) up to WXGA (1,280 x 768). Similar to a laptop-computer screen, the manufacturer claims the Bobcat has superior screen brightness, lower power consumption and a longer lifespan.

We're talking about organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) and, apparently, the attraction isn't the roll-up screen's characteristic, but its thinness and operating efficiency. Seiko, Epson, Philips, DuPont and Osram buy the technology for applications in their products.

As the technology matures, CDT says it will develop full-color screens and begin replacing laptop-type, liquid-crystal-display (LCD) screens (which require backlighting) and the 70-year-old cathode-ray-tube (CRT) technology. Aside, CDT is going head-to-head with Kodak on the development and marketing of OLEDs.

More news. Seiko-Epson (SEC) and CDT have united three technologies to "create a first of a new generation of displays." CDT brought its light-emitting polymers (LEP) to the table and SEC its active-matrix and inkjet-printing technologies.

Combined, the technologies allow inkjet printing of the display's active picture elements (pixels) directly on top of the active matrix's pixel-switching element. Once done, the thin, flat-panel display can display a full, television picture.

LEPs are electroluminescent, meaning they generate light when electrically stimulated. Easily deposited in various patterns, they feature fast response times, a wide color range, an unlimited viewing angle and low power consumption. LEPs work well when mounted on thin glass or plastic substrates.

As you know, you can make very interesting signs with OLEDs and LEPs, but Princeton University wants to incorporate them into interactive wayfinding systems and wall displays. A two-year old Princeton report (IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications magazine, July/August 2000) says, in a fictional narrative, "Unsure of the location of her office, I tap on the wall next to me and a large floor plan appears." Later, our fiction writers tell of viewing a project's plans on his coworkers "smart wall," where he draws modifications with a virtual marker "whose strokes are recognized and used to manipulate the computer model."

No longer fictionalizing, the Princeton writers say, "We believe that new display technologies will revolutionize the way we use computers, making us rethink the relationship between information technology and our society." They continue, saying that large-format display devices are rapidly becoming commodity items.

As my kid would say, "Geeks rule, and dogs drool." Still, geeks don't always have the wind at their backs. Allow me to quote a reader's letter to Wired magazine's Web columnist Jon Katz. Grumpily, the reader says, "A geek's task is to make enterprises function in spite of the blockheads who own and control them."

Remarkably, Katz says this comment is revolutionary, that it exemplifies geeks who are "sick to death of subordination." Katz goes on to wistfully ask if his geekish peers, as they move into their careers, will sell out and become "suits," like Gates. Instead, he hopes they'll create radically different systems.

I think they're confused, because, like him or not, I'm pretty sure that's what Gates did -- create different systems.

Still, Katz expresses an essential truth: Geeks have changed, and will continue to change, the world. After all, Einstein was a geek, as was Galileo and, in a sense, Spiderman.