'Spintronics' brings IBM's Racetrack Memory closer to reality

The Manager of IBM's Magnetoelectronics Almaden Research Center says ideas discussed at a Sydney conference on “Spintronics” will help to advance Big Blue's vision for “Racetrack Memory”, a technology that we've previously explained “involves sending magnetic "stripes" through nanowires, written by imparting spin to the …

[Esskay]

Bloody hell...

50 years ago transistors were a only just beginning to be mass produced, integrated circuits are hitting the market, the audio cassette was invented... I can't wait for the next 50 years! Looking back on current hardware and wondering how we survived with such slow data speeds... I'm really hoping racetrack memory (or any of it's competing "new" methods of storage) come to fruition soon.

[Martin Budden]

Re: Bloody hell...

Yep, kids think I grew up in the stone age, so much has changed. What will the grandkids think?!

[PaulW]

Re: Bloody hell...

As my 10 year old Daughter said to me tonight (on the observation that she was born before TwitBook):

Wow, I was born before technology

**sigh**

[Captain DaFt]

Re: Bloody hell...

You really want to blow a kids mind? Point out that anyone over 50 is older than the states of Hawaii and Alaska, not to mention modern shopping malls!*

"Wow! Did granpa ride a dinosaur to school?"

*The first enclosed mall called Southdale opened in Edina, Minnesota (near Minneapolis) in 1956. Hawaii and Alaska became states in 1959.

[Captain DaFt]

Re: Bloody hell...

AAARRGGH! Make that 60, not 50! mumble mumble...

[IronSteve]

Re: Bloody hell...

Indeed. Want to blow an American's mind? Point out that there are pubs in Ireland older than the USA

[Michael Dunn]

Re: Bloody hell...

"Indeed. Want to blow an American's mind? Point out that there are pubs in Ireland older than the USA"

With the same old codgers propping up the bar as on the day they opened.

[Esskay]

Re: Bloody hell...

"Indeed. Want to blow an American's mind? Point out that there are pubs in Ireland older than the USA"

I recently came back from a holiday to London and Nottingham to meet my brother-in-laws family, and was constantly amazed at the "not-that-old" local pubs that easily outdated the federation of Australia... Also had a pint at Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem - the idea of a pub that dates back to crusades boggles the mind...If it wasn't for the beer I might have gone mad.

[Katie Saucey]

Patents...

..this is the type of work that deserves them, not some fucking "federated search" bar on a phone. Sorry, just finished reading another apple/retard lawsuit article.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Patents...

Even this type of work doesn't *deserve" patents because it's built on the work of many, most of which will be swept under the rug and forgotten when the patent is granted to the player who acts first (generally by having a lawyer running to the bureaucracy with an obfuscatory paper in hand making grandiose claims while the real deal is still being worked out in the labs). Then prices are set to "high", lawsuits fly, industry uncertainty reigns, he-said, she said bullshit occurs and progress may be stifled for decades.

[Bronek Kozicki]

Re: Patents...

... and then competing technologies take over the market, e.g. MRAM (already commercially used in LSI controllers, although in small quantities) or phase-change. So don't worry, costs, lawsuits etc. have a way of driving market in the opposite direction. Just see what happened to Rambus.

[Matt Bryant]

Hmmm.

Given that memristor tech looks to be both practical and commercially available long before IBM's efforts. It will be interesting to see how many of the spin researchers survive IBM's latest round of job cuts. And how the IBM spin doctors will spin the "letting go" of the spin researchers. I think that's enough spin for now! Having booked the day of I think I'll go drink cider in the garden until the garden spins.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spintronics

Any relation to Spindizzies ?