Strange New World: Picks of the Week
Gifts for High-Tech Moms, Sam's Club Goes Green and More
"It's very different from any other electrical device," HP scientist Stanley Williams told Reuters. "No combination of resistor, capacitor or inductor will give you that property."
He then compared the circuit to water flowing through a garden hose: "In a regular circuit, the water flows from more than one direction," Williams said. "But in a memory resistor, the hose remembers what direction the water or current is flowing from, and it expands in that direction to improve the flow. If water or current flows from the other direction, the hose shrinks."
Computers using this new circuit would boot up much faster when you turned them on. The circuits would remember where they were when they were turned off and just go from there. Imagine if your PC was actually "instantly on," with no waiting at all!?!
Sam's Club Goes Green for Real
Here's a little tidbit that caught our eye: Sam's Club might actually be taking recycling seriously. The shopping club mega store quietly announced that it is kicking off what seems like a rather significant electronics recycling and trade-in program.
Simply visit the site and click through to the brand, make, model and stats you want to trade in.
The old HP sitting on our floor had value of $8. CRT monitors are not accepted. We got a $1 bonus for having spent $300 on some memory back in the day. We then were given instructions to sign in and become a member, at which point we would receive our $9 in the form of a gift card.
The Web site hardly seemed like the slickest we had ever used, but still there was a remarkable amount of inventory from which to choose. They accept items of no value for free. And they claim that nothing they take in will go to a landfill or be dumped off shore. Everything will either be refurbished and resold or broken down for parts.
The company claims it uses Department-of-Defense-level of drive reformatting to protect people's information and that the service is secure.
As much heat as we have given Wal-Mart and it sister brands over the years, we have to say this product does look intriguing.
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