IBM’s Almaden Research Center is filled with some of the best and brightest minds in the world, and its researchers just released new findings that detail how just how far IBM has come in the realm of magnetic storage. Andreas Heinrich is leading the team at Big Blue that figured out how to create atomic storage based on the fact that atoms of ferromagnetic material align their spins in one direction — so the ability to control the spin direction is what’s needed to make such minature memory possible. Heinrich and his crew were able to accomplish the trick by supercooling 12 atoms to four degrees kelvin (-452 fahrenheit), and arranging them using an electron microscope in such a away that nonvolatile storage became possible. As this is only a proof of concept, we won’t be seeing atomic memory at, say, CES any time soon, but you can dig into the deep science behind the breakthrough at the source link below.

IBM stores bits on arrays of atoms, shrinks magnetic storage to the scientific limit originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IBM's new memory storing the letters for the word THINK.

Computer and memory chips usually tend to get smaller over time, but in a paper published Thursday in Science IBM details how it’s building memory chips that would be 100 times more dense than today’s hard drives by starting with the smallest building blocks–atoms. Big Blue’s prototype chip is only 12 atoms across (click here for an awesome visualization of how small an atom is. No really, click it!) but is another way of thinking about ways to get beyond the limits of building ever smaller chips keeping Moore’s Law on track.

Andreas Heinrich, the project lead for IBMs efforts, explained in an interview that this tech may never be realized in part because it requires an entirely new type of manufacturing equipment to be built. However, IBM is learning how to manipulate atoms for storing bits and identified a new type of magnetism that could one day be used. Unlike the type of magnetism that keeps your magnets stuck to your fridge, IBM is looking at the reverse of those properties to make this highly dense type of memory.

It’s called antiferromagnetism, and the benefits of using it are not only its density, but that data wouldn’t be lost if it encountered a magnet. IBM is also playing with memory made using traditional magnets, but unfortunately at the atomic level nearby magnets tend to disrupt one another making it difficult to use them close together to store data. Applying antiferromagnetism prevents this and enables researchers to build smaller structures. Heinrich notes that the 12-atom memory chip prototype was only possible in a very low temperature environment, and to make a stable prototype in a room-temperature environment it would take a device that’s 150-atoms thick.

So clearly these aren’t ready for prime time in a hot data center anytime soon. I kid, but the real value of the research here is that there are folks out there continuing to try to advance computing not just for tomorrow but for decades down the line. When your future mobile phone packs a terabyte of storage it may be Heinrich and IBM you should thank. For more info check out IBM’s video below.

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If you’ve been waiting to catch a whiff of some Cedar Trail freshness, looks like you’re just gonna hold your breath a little bit longer. DigiTimes is reporting that the next-gen Atom chip has been pushed back from its anticipated September launch to November. Apparently Chipzilla is having issues with the graphics drivers and has been unable to pass Windows 7 certification. The new low-power CPUs should still be ready in time for the holiday season though, and will likely find their way into plenty of netbooks that almost nobody will buy.

Cedar Trail may be delayed, new Atoms gone ’til November originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 03:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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From what I remember of chemistry, molecules were presented on computer screens, or at the very least with dowels and balls. Thanks to this incredible discovery, however, I’m jealous of how tomorrow’s engineers will view—and control—nature’s building blocks.

Now, the picture above is pretty unremarkable, right? Black and white (trivia: molecules have no color), grainy, shot in the kind of out-of-focus manner you expect from a guy like me, who can’t seem to venture out beyond the Auto setting on his entry-level Nikon D40 DSLR. But wait a second. Doesn’t the image kind of seem, well, familiar? Like high school chem class familiar? Balls and sticks familiar?

Here’s another image; a computer generated image that’s much more at home for anyone who studied atoms and molecules in the dead and gone days of 1997:

Make sense now? That B&W structure is an actual image of a molecule and its atomic bonds. The first of its kind, in fact, and a breakthrough for the crazy IBM scientists in Zurich who spent 20 straight hours staring at the “specimen”—which in this case was a 1.4 nanometer-long pentacene molecule comprised of 22 carbon atoms and 14 hydrogen atoms.

You can actually make out each of those atoms and their bonds, and it’s thanks to this: An atomic force microscope.

Like the venerable electron microscope, but more powerful and with an eye for the third dimension, the AFM is able to make the nano world something we humans can appreciate visually. Using a silicon microscale cantilever coated in carbon dioxide (tiny, tiny needle), lasers, an “ultrahigh vacuum” and temperatures that hovered around 5 Kelvin, the AFM imaged the pentacene in nanometers. It did this while sitting a mere 0.5 nanometers above the surface and its previously invisible bonds for 20 long, unmoving hours. The length of time is noteworthy, said IBM scientist Leo Goss in statement from IBM, because any movement whatsoever would have disrupted the delicate atomic bonds and ruined the image.

And that’s the real beauty of this image. For the first time ever we can see where each of those carbon and hydrogen atoms line up, and the overall symmetrical shape they create. In 3D.

Quirky, Quarky, Quantum Computing

That IBM, a hardware company, was the entity to accomplish this feat should be fairly obvious, given what we know (and don’t yet know) about quantum computing. Said an IBM representative in an email to me this morning, “This pioneering achievement and the new insights gained from the experiments extend the ability of scientists to study matter with atomic resolution and open up exciting new possibilities for exploring electronic building blocks and devices at the ultimate atomic and molecular scale-devices that might be vastly smaller, faster and more energy-efficient than today’s processors and memory devices.”

In a quarkshell, that means this discovery might help future engineers manipulate atoms and their bonds, as well as create powerful, energy-sipping quantum computers for their cryptography needs, space travel or maybe even large black and yellow rooms that make our fantasies come true (or at the very least allow androids to play Sherlock Holmes).

But not so fast, Einstein. I see that tabletop subspace communicator you’ve imagined on your desktop. It’s a great idea, and while I understand your enthusiasm for such things, as Matt explained earlier this month quantum computing, entangled desktops and Star Trek holodecks are all decades away, if not more.

What this discovery does do however is advance our primitive understanding of the Way Things Are. It’s a small, nanometer-sized piece in a puzzle that doesn’t even have all the pieces on the table yet. Hell, we don’t even know where all the pieces are yet. From the looks of these images though, we will someday soon. [Images: IBM]

I have to say, this is a — excuse me — a damn fine looking all-in-one PC. Why, if it weren’t for the somewhat out-of-place strip of leather, I might just nab one of these Wind Top AE2010 things right now. Actually, I have no use for all-in-ones, but for the budget-and-design-conscious PC user, this thing looks like the holy grail. Even the specs are nice.

The screen is 20″ at 1600×900, You’ve got an Athlon X2 dual-core 1.5GHz processor (better than it sounds, and way better than the Atoms out there), integrated Radeon 3200 graphics with discrete memory, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB 7200RPM HDD, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Integrated webcam, mic, and SRS speakers, a card reader, six USB ports… it’s really quite fully featured, and starting at $650, it’s pretty light on the wallet, too. Did I forget to mention the whole thing runs on a 90W power supply?

And wait, did I also forget to mention that you can get the thing with a touchscreen? Man, if I were a kid trying to decide between this thing and an iMac, I’d be having a hell of a tough time. It comes with Vista, but you can fix that pretty easily.

[via Tech Report]

What are the advantages of ConnectTime DSL over dial-up or ISDN service?
The increased bandwidth and flexibility of ConnectTime DSL offers customers an unmatched combination of speed and price. Increased Speed – The bandwidth of ConnectTime DSL allows customers to increase performance up to 27 times greater than conventional 28.8K modems and 6 times greater than ISDN. Low Price – ConnectTime DSL service provides superior value to customers needing Internet access from a single location.SHELXD was designed to find large numbers of atoms, and it also rejects all atoms on special positions because these are usually false (‘unranium atom’) solutions.

How can I speed up the program’s performance?
In case of a poor performance of Anyplace Control while viewing of the remote screen, it is recommended (in order from most effective remedy to less effective): Try to disable “Hardware acceleration” on the remote PC. In some cases it gives a significant increase of the performance level. How to disable “Hardware acceleration” you can read here. Connect to a Host PC and enter either Full Control or View Only mode, select Performance/Quality tab.

My computer is running very slow. What can I do to speed it up?
There are many factors that affect PC performance including both software and hardware. First, check out the minimum requirements found at  Please realize these are the minimum requirements and any hardware additions especially adding memory will help boost performance significantly. Eliminating unused programs from your computer and unnecessary icons off the desktop will also increase PC performance.Virtual PC was originally produced by Connectix.

Why isn’t Client/Server support bundled in the base engine jar?
Many applications run entirely on a single system in a single process, so do not require Client/Server capabilities. For instance, a servlet storing data entered into a Web form or an address book application running on a PC does not need to communicate with other processes. Client/Server code would increase the footprint of these applications and provide no benefit. For such applications, Derby provides all the advantages of a relational database without unnecessary networking code.In case of a poor performance of Anyplace Control while viewing of the remote screen, it is recommended (in order from most effective remedy to less effective): Try to disable “Hardware acceleration” on the remote PC. In some cases it gives a significant increase of the performance level. How to disable “Hardware acceleration” you can read here. Connect to a Host PC and enter either Full Control or View Only mode, select Performance/Quality tab.FactSage 5.

How will my organization benefit from the MX Logic Web Defense Service?
bull; Improve employee productivity  Reduces computer downtime, unproductive Web surfing, network congestion. bull; Reduce IT costs  Frees IT staff from threat management, enabling them to focus on core business needs. Fewer Spyware and virus infections mean less PC rebuilding, cleaning, and maintenance, better PC performance, and fewer Help Desk calls.Yes. But most home office networks can upload data only about 10% as fast as they can download. This often limits video performance to just a couple of frames of video per second. You can increase performance by making the video window smaller or by using a network with faster upload speed.

What is MA1840 development software?
This language is similar to assembly language. The language supports the same high-level SCSI operations of the C/C++ product with an enormous speed increase. Programs developed with this software actually run on the OP1840/50 card and do not need constant communications with the PC, so performance is not degraded even on the slowest PCs.In case of a poor performance of Anyplace Control while viewing of the remote screen, it is recommended (in order from most effective remedy to less effective): Try to disable “Hardware acceleration” on the remote PC. In some cases it gives a significant increase of the performance level.

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