Revolution ahead in data storage, say IT wizards

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2007

PARIS (AFP) — The world's smallest hard drives have already shrunk to the size of a postage stamp, but nanoscale computing may soon make that achievement look elephantine, say some of the stars of information technology.

Breathtaking change is on the horizon in personal and industrial data storage, the experts say in a review of vanguard technology, published on Thursday in the British journal Nature Materials.

The newest developments in "spintronics", for example, are poised to go beyond the electrical charge of classic electronics to harness the quantum "spin" state of electrons, writes Albert Fert, co-winner last month of the Nobel Prize for Physics.

That could usher in dramatic advances in hard disk storage capacity and date retrieval, says Fert.

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