The scientist who first made possible the small data storage capabilities of devices like the Palm Pilot and the iPod is poised to take this miniaturization to the next level. Stuart Parkin, currently based out of IBM, revolutionized digital storage in the early '90s by manipulating the magnetic properties of tiny areas of a disc to allow for more storage. Now he's developing technology that could surpass flash memory in three to five years, not to mention open doors for engineers to create unprecedented media and communication technologies.

By standing billions of ultrafine wires around a silicon chip and allowing electric currents to move tiny magnets up and down those wires up to speeds of 100 meters a second, making storage extremely faster. Most data storage available now makes can read information at very quick speeds, but its storing capacity remains slower. Parkin's technology has the possibility of not only making storage much faster, but by doing this, could open the door for a change in the way computing works. Data searches, storage and analysis could take place in a entirely new way, and the way we view information could be one step closer to a completely digital world.

Redefining the Architechture of Memory

Labels: Advanced Computing, Nanotechnology