That 16GB flash memory card you’ve been eyeing up is so last year. In fact, flash memory we know it today could approach extinction thanks to some intelligent engineers using spintronic techniques. If it sounds dizzying, it is: using electrons that spin in place, these engineers created a fingernail-sized chip that holds one Terabyte of information, reports Computerworld. That’s enough storage to contain 20 high-definition movies, all of your personal data or nearly all of Robert Scoble’s Twitter history.
The research work was done by a team at North Carolina State university and this tidbit of their press release jumped out at me (emphasis mine):
“Most energy used today is harnessed through the movement of current and is limited by the amount of heat that it produces, but the energy created by the spinning of electrons produces no heat. The NC State engineers were able to manipulate the nanomaterial so the electrons’ spin within the material could be controlled, which could prove valuable to harnessing the electrons’ energy.”
My head is spinning after reading the entire release, but here’s my takeaway: this technique could lead to vast amounts of portable data storage on portable devices while deceasing the required size and heat. I’m no science expert, but that sounds good to me.

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