We've always heard that Chewbacca and friends had the power to control nanoscale strain in processors in a galaxy far, far away, but we Earthlings are just now getting caught up. Researchers at the Centre d'élaboration de matériaux et d'études structurales (CEMES-CNRS) have reportedly patented a measurement device that will essentially "enable manufacturers to improve microprocessor production methods and optimize future computers." We'll warn you, the meat of this stuff is pretty technical, but the take home is this: the technique has a good chance at "optimizing strain modeling in transistors and enhancing their electrical efficiency," which is just what we need for more potent chips that demand less energy. And that's something even a layman can appreciate.

Not to get all scientific on you or anything, but a team of Imperial physicists have just figured out a way to use plastics in laser diodes. For the uninitiated, scientists have been unable to make plastic semiconductor laser diodes because they had not yet found / developed "any plastics that could sustain a large enough current whilst also supporting the efficient light emission needed to produce a laser beam." Now, however, that obstacle has reportedly been overcome by making minor tweaks to a given plastic's chemical structure, and the resulting material will transport charges some 200 times better than before without impeding its ability to emit light. By the sound of things, the crew behind the breakthrough isn't quite ready to offer up the solution to manufacturers, but with a bit more work, we suspect that notion will change.

[Via Slashdot]

So, how do you go about impressing the world after busting out a few systems based around the "fastest chip on Earth?" By getting us all worked up for a little thing called racetrack memory, that's how. Far from being the first memory technology that runs laps around the DIMMs we're relying on today, IBM researchers are suggesting that this iteration could enable users to store substantially more data at a lower cost and be available in around a decade. Put simply, the gurus working the project have discovered a way to overcome the prohibitively expensive process of manipulating domain walls in magnetic storage, essentially making a long-standing approach entirely more viable. If you're totally in nerd heaven right now, we assure you, checking out the explanatory video waiting after the jump is a must-do.

[Via BBC]

Although it seemed that Seagate was comfortably at the forefront of magnetic recording developments, Fujitsu is hoping that its latest "breakthrough" will add a little friction to the areal density competition. Using patterned media technology, the firm "was able to achieve a one-dimensional array nanohole pattern with an unprecedented 25 nanometer pitch," which essentially means that recording one-terabit per square inch onto HDDs of the future is now realizable. Additionally, the company also revealed a new development "involving perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) read / write operation on random patterned media," which utilizes the soft underlayer (SUL) as the PMR media. As expected, the presenters weren't as forthcoming about when we'd actually see these achievements make a difference in our laptops, servers, and other HDD-equipped devices, but the sooner the better, okay Fujitsu?