3 ms·

I’m skeptical of any ‘best of all worlds’ claim for a nascent technology. In this case, durability and read/write speed in one device would indeed be revolution

I’m skeptical of any ‘best of all worlds’ claim for a nascent technology. In this case, durability and read/write speed in one device would indeed be revolutionary, but at what cost? If I were to guess I’d say it would be around data integrity. If it works using resonance, could neighborhood bits be flipped sympathetically under certain circumstances? Would it have the same durability guarantees from server to mobile device? In environs with high EM radiation? Over millions of writes? If there are indeed no trade offs, hooray! Even if there are, it will still have use cases for many scenarios, albeit not ‘universal’. More generally I wish sci/tech reporters would ask these kinds of open questions, or lead their readers into doing so. Otherwise it feels like vaporware as they presented it, even if the work is valuable and credible.

pishpash 7y ago
Haven't read the paper, but persistence and energy (and therefore transition time) to write, i.e. change a physical state, if not read, seem like a pretty fundamental tradeoff pair that can't be broken.
elfexec 7y ago
> Otherwise it feels like vaporware as they presented it, even if the work is valuable and credible. Whatever happened to all the graphene hype from 5 years ago? For a while, graphene was the wonder material that was going to cure cancer, give us fusion and make us immortal. Everything was supposed to be made of graphene material by now. And suddenly people/media stopped talking about graphene.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Hush your mouth! Graphene can do everything! (Except get out of the lab)
- krastanov 7y ago
  That progress is happening and I see it every day around the academic labs I work at. There are improvements in manufacturing larger sheets, it is used as an important step of various nanofabrication protocols, and it inspired a whole family of more interesting 2D materials. I suspect the hype died for the same reason it happens with any important new discovery - it is overhyped in the beginning by excited scientist because they love what they are working on, then mostly silently the work continues for decades, and then people just do not notice when it is part of the everyday tech we use.

pishpash 7y ago

Haven't read the paper, but persistence and energy (and therefore transition time) to write, i.e. change a physical state, if not read, seem like a pretty fundamental tradeoff pair that can't be broken.

elfexec 7y ago

> Otherwise it feels like vaporware as they presented it, even if the work is valuable and credible. Whatever happened to all the graphene hype from 5 years ago? For a while, graphene was the wonder material that was going to cure cancer, give us fusion and make us immortal. Everything was supposed to be made of graphene material by now. And suddenly people/media stopped talking about graphene.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
Hush your mouth! Graphene can do everything! (Except get out of the lab)
krastanov 7y ago
That progress is happening and I see it every day around the academic labs I work at. There are improvements in manufacturing larger sheets, it is used as an important step of various nanofabrication protocols, and it inspired a whole family of more interesting 2D materials. I suspect the hype died for the same reason it happens with any important new discovery - it is overhyped in the beginning by excited scientist because they love what they are working on, then mostly silently the work continues for decades, and then people just do not notice when it is part of the everyday tech we use.