I forgot to blog about it a few days ago. Though only speculated a few decades back, the memristor has just been discovered.
Called the enigmatic 4th dimension of the electric circuit (the others are the resistor, capacitor and inductor), it’s a layer of titanium dioxide sandwiched by 2 electrodes. The HP geeks discovered that its resistance relies on the previous charge in it. The keyword here is previous. This means it can store data even when the power is shut off.
Yawn, just like flash memory.
But wait. The difference is that it stores data faster and at greater density.
Verdict: The difference is speculative at best. Pure science. Not much technology yet. But time to re-write the books.