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Reuters: Scientists develop new type of memory circuit - 'Could lead to a computer you never have to boot up'

It took about 40 years to find it, but scientists at Hewlett-Packard said on Wednesday they discovered a fourth basic type of electrical circuit that could lead to a computer you never have to boot up.

The finding proves what until now had only been theory -- but could save millions from the tedium of waiting for a computer to find its "place," the researchers said.

Basic electronics theory teaches that there are three fundamental elements of a passive circuit -- resistors, capacitors and inductors.

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reuters.com

Cyrus365 - contributor
Published: 603 days 10 hours ago | News | PC | Tech

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Rice - 603 days 9 hours ago

1 -

First and Sweet...

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streeks1984 - 602 days 15 hours ago

1.1 -

This can be very interesting in the computer world. But this wont be significant until like 10 years from now because that is how slow we as a people adopt new technologies.

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Evildoomnerd - 603 days 9 hours ago

2 -

*Insert possibility of Skynet and/or The Matrix with the use of this memory circuit here. *

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AllroundGamer - 603 days 9 hours ago

2.1 -

judgment day is coming...

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PR0NE - 603 days 8 hours ago

2.2 -

judgment day is inevitable... (start a chain here)

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IDemonstalkerXI - 603 days 7 hours ago

2.3 - Bionic men and women as well as Droids, cyborgs and androids Rejoice.

Not to mention us gaming rig/console Jockeys. Sounds like a signigicant advancement those folks trying to stick with Moore's law must be happy.

I wonder how many years we will have to wait before we see a product utilizing this new type of memory that actually ....remembers. :D

By the time you finish eating this cookie ...yada,yada, yada.

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JoelR - 603 days 9 hours ago

3 -

memistors... well they have been long theorized but I didn't expect to see on for a while yet
Should be cool - they do have some serious benefits (1 circuit = 1 bit rather than a collection of circuits)
so cooler running mem
higher density of mem on same size silicon

the real question is the speed it can flip at....

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TechWiz - 603 days 9 hours ago

4 - Can't wait for it to get a virus

Quote from the article:
Conventional computers use dynamic random access memory or DRAM, which is lost when the power is turned off, and must be accessed from the hard drive when the computer goes back on.

But a computer that incorporates this new kind of memory circuit would never lose it place, even when the power is turned off.

"If you turn on your computer it will come up instantly where it was when you turned it off. That is a very interesting potential application, and one that is very realistic,"

My thoughts:
If the computer gets a virus how the hell are you going to remove it from the memory.

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xplosneer - 603 days 9 hours ago

4.1 - ...

They'll have to come up with a heck of a new type of Virus Protection.

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Raven6210 - 603 days 9 hours ago

4.2 - option #1

Hit it with a hammer

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The Fungus - 603 days 9 hours ago

4.3 - I'm sure

Anti virus programs will just be able to purge the memory. It'll be like restarting is now.

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Kakkoii - 603 days 8 hours ago

4.4 -

Yeah, all you would have to do is create a command that tells the computer to fill the memory with 0's or 1's so that it's empty again. Deleting any source of a virus.

Basically the new memory would be like the virtual memory on your hard drive. Except it wouldn't be virtual and on a hard disc.

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Eagle_of_Heaven - 603 days 9 hours ago

5 - good find

cyrus. ill like this is my pc :)

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f789790 - 603 days 8 hours ago

6 - Must have

Hope it hits mainstream in a few years.

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Tony Scarboni - 603 days 8 hours ago

7 - This site cracks me up

Whenever there is an actual interesting article barely anyone reads it(judging by the comments). The implications this will have on PCs are jaw dropping. Maybe if they renamed this article " GTA4 came out -and oh yeah, like, scientist created a new form of memory" more ppl would read it.

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Kakkoii - 603 days 8 hours ago

7.1 -

Well.. you have to remember a LARGE portion of the gamers on here couldn't care less about breakthroughs in computing technology. And a lot of them wouldn't even be able to fully understand what is being said in the article, due to being of a young age or just uneducated.

They mainly want to see news directly related to gaming.. or something really crazy like a penguin flying around the world using a jet-pack and some duck-tape.

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Guardian0fPeace - 603 days 7 hours ago

7.2 - tony and kakkoii

+bubble 4 u both!!

"or something really crazy like a penguin flying around the world using a jet-pack and some duck-tape"

only thing is, u 4got, "anything that reinforces their hatred of rivaling consoles like, false hd resolution downgrade rumors and old repeated fake failures."

(some imbeciles took away bubbles cus i said i didnt like halo, isn't that pathetic?)

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Cyrus365 - 603 days 7 hours ago

7.3 -

They don't know or understand how this relates to technology, but they'll soon will, what this may mean for future of conoles like PS5 and 360 Triple 3's or 360 to the power 3, whatever it'll be called.

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Kakkoii - 603 days 7 hours ago

7.4 -

@Guardian0fPeace: Yeah I didn't want to put that part into my comment cause I know for a fact i'd have an onslaught of disagree voting and bubble removing.

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Guardian0fPeace - 603 days 6 hours ago

7.5 - kakkoii...

thats understandable, lol...my bad

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shadowfish - 603 days 3 hours ago

7.6 -

This is probably one of the best findings in recent years. I'm only 14 and I got what they were talking about..

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ParaDise_LosT - 603 days 8 hours ago

8 - Only

in

The Twilight Zone

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MC_KOOL_K - 603 days 7 hours ago

9 - People will have nothing to moan about any more {boot-time wise}

how dare they bring this out

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beans - 603 days 3 hours ago

10 -

The Qauntum days are coming so get ready for Warp speed!

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superaktieboy - 603 days 1 hour ago

11 -

but this type of memory can be a pain in the arse.. if e.g. you restart your computer because it's gone mad or w/e.. and you restart with this memory, you will get back the exact same problem.. with current ram, you get a fresh windows startup, with this new one, you will get back the same..

but i'd guess that they would have to make some special OS that will actually fix this or w/e

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Kakkoii - 602 days 18 hours ago

11.1 -

You'd merely have to have a Reboot and a "Fresh Reboot".

The Fresh Reboot would clear all the data from the memory when shutting down, giving a clean startup.

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TechWiz - 602 days 13 hours ago

11.2 - @ Kakkoii

You make it sound so easy. Have you really try to remove a virus that self-replicates, changes it's code and morph. I have and its a pain to remove.

What happens if the virus blocks you from adding or removing anything to the memory. What are you going to do now, pull the memory out throw it away and buy new memory.

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Kakkoii - 602 days 12 hours ago

11.3 -

You would have it as a motherboard feature then. Directly integrated in the Bios. On startup you'd press a key which would cue a script that just fills the memory. No virus can stop something like that unless the virus is also in the motherboard's Bios. Which it would have to re-flash the Bios to do. Which is not exactly the easiest feat for a virus.

And even if that didn't work. You could have a physical overwrite chip on the motherboard. So you'd have a button leading to the motherboard and when you press that button, it tells the overwrite chip to fill the memory. This chip would only have 1 path. "Input from Button>Chip>Output to memory"
No virus would be able to access it. As it is separated from the rest of the motherboard circuitry, unable to receive any kind of data from a location. All it does, is when power is applied to said chip from the button press which connects an electrical current. The chip does one thing and one thing only, fills the memory with 0's. Data can only flow out, no data can flow into the chip.

A chip like that would be very small and would cost almost nothing for motherboard makers to implement when this memory technology comes into fruition.

So that would be your "Fresh Reboot" button on your computer. Just like a power button and a reset button.

(Oh and on the subject of self replicating virus's. They don't replicate until you've actually started up your OS. (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc..) So by accessing your hard drive threw Dos command prompt from Bios, you can delete virus's from your hard drive without them replicating. (Of course you need to know what files are the virus's. Or use a dos virus scanning tool.)

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12 xtreampro | 602 days 19 hours ago - User only got 1 bubble - Show

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Robulos - 602 days 11 hours ago

13 - @Kakkoi

Better patent that chip idea!

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