I'm not usually one to get all worked up over a new gadget, but given that the technology that I carry in my pocket constantly impresses me, I thought I'd post a little bit about my new toy: A Treo Centro smart phone.

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While this is more technology related, its not programming, so I'm sticking it on my main page. HP has announced that they have discovered the first working version of a new kind of passive component for circuitry that was first predicted in 1971. The memristor ("memory resistor") basically turns the world of electronics on its head, as it is based on using an aspect of electronics that had previously been explained away as an exception. Rather then looking at the fundamental relationship in circuitry as being between voltage and charge, memristors are based on an understanding of flux (change in voltage) and charge.

"The situation is analogous to what is called "Aristotle's Law of Motion, which was wrong, because he said that force must be proportional to velocity. That misled people for 2000 years until Newton came along and pointed out that Aristotle was using the wrong variables. Newton said that force is proportional to acceleration -- the change in velocity. This is exactly the situation with electronic circuit theory today. All electronic text books have been teaching using the wrong variables -- voltage and charge--explaining away inaccuracies as anomalies. What they should have been teaching is the relationship between changes in voltage, or flux, and charge."

Information Weekly's report can be found here. As you read through it you can kind of get the sense that this could really be the breakthrough in technology for this generation.

Kind of nerdy, but I think my Dad would get a kick out of this too.