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One Step Closer To Speedier, Bootless Computers
CWmike writes "Physicists at the University of California at Riverside have made a breakthrough in developing a 'spin computer,' which would combine logic with nonvolatile memory, bypassing the need for computers to boot up. The advance could also lead to super-fast chips. The new transistor technology, which one lead scientist believes could become a reality in about five years, would reduce power consumption to the point where eventually computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices could remain on all the time. The breakthrough came when scientists at UC Riverside successfully injected a spinning electron into a resistor material called graphene, which is essentially a very thin layer of graphite. The graphene in this case is one-atom thick. The process is known as 'tunneling spin injection.' A lead scientist for the project said the clock speeds of chips made using tunneling spin injection would be 'thousands of times' faster than today's processors. He describes the tech as a totally new concept that 'will essentially give memory some brains.'"
So, this is becoming a trend. Bad summary. It's not an outright lie, just misleading. From reading the article, one might get the sense that we might see this in products in 5 years. However, the article actually states that the guy said:
"I'm one of those researchers that really cringes at the thought of saying this [new technology] can be useful. I think for us, maybe within five years we can get one device working."
So, the guy is realistic, and not a douche. "We can maybe get one working in 5 years" is not the same as seeing it in devices in 5 years (which, again, wasn't explicitly stated in the summary, but i feel like thats what people would think).
In reality, we might get something in products in 10 years.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
But the one about 'You can keep them powered on', it's like a game changer from out of left field. Maybe booting will become irrelevant by then?
Not if they're running Windows. Doesn't it still have to reboot whenever you update the freaking PDF viewer?
even today's mainstream cpus are far more powerful than what our everyday tasks involve. even the fps-hungry gaming crowd has been reaching perceptive limits in regard to human eye, and the frame rate has become a sport, a statistical value.
unless society takes on seti, parallel computing etc as hobbies, we wont need more processing power in our daily lives.
Just wait till the next version of windows hits the shelves...
I'm fairly certain that computing power is like hard drive space or time 'till the deadline , we will always find ways to fill it, no matter how much we think we have in the beginning.
-I only code in BASIC.-
1000x in 5 years IS wishful thinking, but it isn't THAT drastically off from Moore's law, which predicts a 1000x increase every 10 to 15 years. And it's never happened overnight, but in steps every few months. Many of the "1000x-predicted" technologies that /. covered 10 years ago probably have been part of the 1000x-actual increase of the last 10 years.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
When you start advocating the death, en masse, of your political opponents, you've moved outside the realm of civilized society. Stop. Even if it's "just a joke".