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HP, Princeton Develop New Memory Material
An anonymous reader writes "Hewlett-Packard and Princeton researchers say they've developed a hybrid material that could be used for super-compact electronic memory, making the CD, DVD and similar media seem enormous and clunky by comparison. As reported by Science Blog, 'The researchers achieved the result by discovering a previously unrecognized property of a commonly used conductive polymer plastic coating. Their memory device combines this polymer, which is inexpensive and easy to produce, with very thin-film, silicon-based electronics.'"
This is another thing that strikes me as being similiar to the battery "advances" we've had over the years that have never made it into consumer products. We've been hearing about MRAM and storage densities for years, and yet we still don't have instant-on computers. I wonder if we'll see an article about how these advances are idling just like the battery field.
0x0D 0x0A
Fantastic. Now lets get with the program and refer to this permanent, high capacity "memory" as "storage".
Still, this has great potential for delivering software and content. If it gets cheap, think about the potential for distributing movies on these as opposed to dvds.
No, real memory holds data. This tech seems to fill that requirement.
ROM
WORM
RAM
Look 'em up.
-Peter
It seems like every week we're subjected to another story about some research lab somewhere devising a new type of memory that's harder, better, faster, stronger, fitter, happier, more productive, and what have you. This seems all wonderful, but when are we actually going to start seeing this new technology? With these all too frequent advances in memory, all going in seemingly different directions, all sponsored by different entities, doesn't it seem like it is just going to take longer for any of them to become an accepted standard, and actually put in use outside the lab?
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
Mental note: Must corner market on Hefty Bags.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
You know, it's not like just because it's "write once read many", it's useless.
Imagine a new CD or DVD format where the media doesn't have to be spun. Portable music / video players could be nearly solid-state and thus more durable and compact and require far less maintenance.
I'd happily move to a new format of music where I could carry something like a pack of gum filled with "sticks" of music and pop one into a tiny player even smaller than that of the iPod....
Furthermore, this sort of thing is great for archiving data, which is the main purpose anyone talked about in the article. More data archived in less space = good, period... it takes up less bookshelves or whatever...
My only concern is that with the "fuse" design, how susceptible is it to be ruined by an errant static shock, etc?
http://www.babysmasher.com
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The form of this device is 3-dimensional, with roughly one gig/centimeter. It's very unlikely that the storage size of these devices would be kept at one gig. More likely would be some convenient-to-cary size, or even a dynamic size with one side designated as the interface to the reader, and the opposite end would grow for increasing sizes. That means the reader would have to be built to hold the largest size that might go in it, else be open-ended, and a user will have to insert the data end into the device. There would also likely be a shell around the data unit to protect from blunt damage. This is all presumption, but at least mechanically, if this becomes popular, we could see the return of cartridge-style packaging of games. This combined with the return of the Atari brandname for some reason makes me uneasy. :^)
Ryan Fenton
"Their memory device combines this polymer, which is inexpensive and easy to produce, with very thin-film, silicon-based electronics."
Alright, the polymer is inexpensive and easy to produce. How about the "thin-film, silicon-based electronics"? That seems to be being glossed over here...
1GB per cubic centimeter? a 5GB rod is 5x1x1 centimeters...doesn't make a dvd seem enormous to me.
This will be worthwhile if for nothing else than finally giving all us nerds the "data crystals" we have always wanted from various crap sci-fi...
Data crystals are based on holographic data storage. Holographic memory has the advantage of preserving vast amounts of data throughout the volume of the crystal, not just on the surface, plus if it's chipped or broken each piece still retains the entire holographic image. It's completely different from any data storage method used today, including this one.
For various reasons, mostly cost and implementation, holographic data storage has never materialized. You can read a little more about it at HowStuffWorks and other places. (I googled for "holographic memory data storage" and found that page at the top.)
Although useful for write-once archiving of data, this format does not seem very useful for CD-ROM, and DVD-ROM applications. CD-ROM and DVD-ROMs can be cheaply mass-produced in pressing operations that simultaneously form all the data into the disk.
In contrast, it would appear that a copy of the data must be sequentially downloaded into each memory device -- like writing to an EPROM. I doubt this can be done very quickly without thermal damage to the device. Without a quick and cheap way of mass-producing the memory device (with the data on it) this technology is less useful for content distribution applications. It still has some potential for archiving, though.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_837803.html?m enu=news.latestheadlines
How does an inexpensive cost contribute to making this a step backward? From the article, it sounded as though the low cost was one of the big advantages of this technology.
In any case, I can think of many applications for this type of read-only storage device. Companies, for example, would love this for software or media distribution.
Ah, yes, the future will come...In 5 to 10 years.
Making the CD, DVD and similar media seem enormous and clunky by comparison
I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I don't want my media to get much smaller. There is a limit to how small something can get before you just start losing it. Ever dropped a tablet somewhere? CDs/DVDs are a bit of an awkward size/shape though to.
I'd appreciate media that wasn't so delicate. One thing that really sucks about DVDs is the rental market. I've rented discs that are no more than 3 months old, and are scratched so badly that entire chapters are unplayable. Video cassettes can survive a bit of a drop - I can't say the same for DVDs. And let's not get started on greasy finger prints.
I'll take your storage (more storage is always welcome), but could you package it a bit more user-friendly?
Refuse to make a statement in your sig!
"The device can also be used as a plastic wrap", say the researchers. "We think it brings new meaning to shrink-wrap licensing."
"similar media seem enormous and clunky by comparison"
;-)
It depends on what you're calling "similar media". My 1gig Compact Flash card is probably less volume than a 1cm square cube already, and you can write AND read to it. Already a CF card is available at 4gigs in the same space.
It may be better form-factor than CD or DVD, but that's because these formats are quite old "standards". The CD format was developed about 20 years ago, right? DVD is looking pretty dated as well. I'm sure with newer technology (blue laser?) you could get up to 40gigs or more today.
I think this would be more impressive if it were a Terrabyte in the same space. The next big standard needs to make a big leap forward to get people to toss out the old technology. Of course, whoever is designing this standard will probably get a lot of heat from the big media lawyers to never sell it to end users (wouldn't want poor owner to backup all his DVD's to a single cube)
Of course the above CF cards are quite pricy, so it's not a great analogy, but the density argument is still valid.
First of all: I have no higher schooling in either of the subjects (chemistry or math), so if the answer to my question is explained somewhere in terms that a layman in those subjects could understand, by all means, direct me to them...
Anyway, here's what I'm wondering:
How far are we from reducing the problem of designing a material with the exact properties we need for a particular use, to entering the properties we want into a computer, watch the manufacturing machine mix together the required components, and the finished material come out?
I understand that much of chemistry is mathematics, and the ways that atoms and molecules interact can be predicted, simulated, to some extent, without the ingredients physically having to be mixed together.
Is it at all possible to determine if nature's rulebook of chemistry ever can be fully understood? Can it, given enough knowledge, time and computational power, be possible, in the future, to simulate how _any_ substances will interact, and without the need for experimenting, know in advance exactly what mix of atoms are needed to get the material properties we want? Or, closest possible match?
Depending on how cheap this memory is. You could pack in a few gigabytes. Being that your just storing phone numbers and text, that would be plenty of space. Thus, the phone would use the built-in memory like a scratch pad. when you want to erase a number, it just scratches off that address of memory as unusable and moves on to the next line. Chances are, that would never use up all that memory throughout the life of the phone. Being that technology advances and all.
Life is not for the lazy.
This also helps explain why OLED displays will replace LCDs later, rather than sooner: they haven't broken even on their LCD manufacturing investments yet. The only company really pushing OLED forward is Kodak (who also discovered it), both because they don't have anything sunk into LCD so there's nothing to canibalize, and because they've got to innovate now that film is dying (netcraft confirms it). :)
--
Power to the Peaceful
...about things that were invented/announced/promised and which were never delivered. What's more, these complaints are RIGHT.
This is the 21st century.
Where's my nuclear powered flying family car?
Where's my personal jet pack?
Where's my silver jump suit with big pointy fins on the shoulders? I was supposed to be wearing it on my trip up to the orbital Interstellar House of Pancakes!
By now we should be able to have EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY, ALL THE TIME! They PROMISED!
I'm sick of being lied to. I say we put together a Slashdot Mobile Undercover Team (SMUT). Their job would be to attack the labs that announce these new things and demand "DELIVER, bonehead, or SHUT UP." And if they don't give a delivery date, we TAKE the widget and go play with it until it breaks. I've got me a 5 pound Craftsman ball peen Miraculous New Device Testing Tool, and I know how to use it.
"We won't get fooled again!" -- St. Daltrey
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Given even the most complete description of the molecular structure of a substance, down to the individual atoms and their positions, you can't use chemistry to predict the most basic properties of the substance.
such as:
- what color is it?
- What's the melting point? boiling point?
- is it a conductor, insulator or semiconductor?
- Is it stable at room temperature?
and so on.What you are asking about is even harder: given
a list of properties, come up with a substance
that has them, and a way to make it. That is so far beyond what chemistry can do that it is probably not even chemistry any more.
$0.02.
How is this truely a step back when it add huge advantages if used properly... Since it eliminates the need of a motor to spin a CD.. this would be a perfect replacement andding countless hours of battery life in portable media devices... Flash cards are costly and have a somewhat limited lifespan.. If this media is sold cheap enough... Who really cares if its rewritable or not... if I have 2 gigs of storage with a media that 1.5 inches square and costs me 2$.. I would gladly replace this media when its full... or what not...
I fail to see How this is a Leap back... Its a good leap forward... After all.. It will be eliminating quite a few problems asociated with CD type media.. No more scratches.. Less moving parts to break in the players.. longer battery life... This is an advancement... It will be hard to get people to start moving from cd's to a new storage medium... MP3 storage and mobility could help break down the barriers.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
Some of you people are missing the point. First of all, CDs/DVDs are optical, and the drives are mechanical with several moving parts. This is, for intents and purposes, solid state. These new drives are going to be a *ton* faster. Second. The end device will probably start off as cartridge, only much faster than CDs. Most cartridges from as far back as the Magnavox Oddysey^2 work fine to this day...If you even look at a DVD/CD wrong and you're in skipsville (at the minimum). DVDs aren't famous for being scratch resistant. So it's read only, so are DVDs/CDs. RWs are cool, yes. But the media is more expensive, and most people don't use them when you can buy spindles of blanks. I'm sure these will come in "burnable" form sooner or later too. Back to the solid state issue: future cartridge formats may take advantage of newer technology, and build them into the discs (no more new drives after this)
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
Why don't storage companies fix DVDs first? CDs were originally promoted with 100 year archival lifetime. Now they're revealed to be more like 10, minus accidental scratches to the "label", the unprotected metal face into which the data is burned. DVDs are supposed to have 2 data faces, with 2 layers per face, at 4.7GB on each of the 4 layers (as per the DVD media spec). They still have just 4.7GB per disc, rather than 18.8GB.
If they glued 2 DVD-Rs together, and/or embedded the extra semitransparent layers in the clear acrylic, they'd double or quadruple the capacity to compete with current rewritable HD capaticies (per $ and m^3, if not per drive). And burying the fragile data layers would offer much longer archival lifetimes. And of course, they'd get to sell us a new line of incompatible drives! Bring it on!
--
make install -not war
The device could be very small because it would not involve moving parts such as the laser and motor drive required by CDs.
From what a professor told me once, CDs didn't have to be created the way they are. They could've been made square so that, instead of the CD spinning in the tray, the laser beam would be bent by a prism (or through other means). This would make CD technology much faster and less susceptible to errors, etc.
Why did they make CDs round? Because they were first used for audio, so they were made to look like records. A silly marketing strategy screwed us out of a much better implementation of the same technology!
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
Real memory is rewritable, like CD-RWs
They are actually working on something with the chalcogenide material used in CD-RWs. Its call OUM or Ovonic Unified Memory. Intel is supposedly ahead in the research on this stuff but STMicro and Lockheed Martin are in on it, too.
Google for it to get more info. The cool stuff is that, if this stuff comes to fruition, is that it will eventually replace hard drives - solid state storage with DRAM access speeds. *That* is the future. DISCLAIMER - Gordon Moore wrote a paper on this stuff in the 60s. So it really *is* the future.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Fast Page, EDO, SDRAM, DDR, Rambus...
On the non-volatile side of things, we have floppy disks, high capacity floppy disks, CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD+-R, DVD+-RW...
You know, all of the things you use were at one time some press release, years (or even decades) away from consumer availability.
Trust me, kids, back when I got my Vic-20 pretty much all of this seemed like science fiction, and like *nothing* ever actually came out.
Then I waited long enough to see research turn into the real goods.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
OLED have a lot of problems: this is why OLED displays are not here yet.
I am not an expert of the field, but some time ago I have found this report (in PDF)
Look at page 2 (second half) for see such problems.
Look also at page 16: OLED aren't expected to catch LCD performance until 2007
The article is a bit old, and i don't know if something is changed.