Nanomech memory promises faster, less power hungry storage

Yeah we know — promises, promises. But for the optimists among you, Dutch semiconductor company Cavendish Kinetics says they've developed a storage medium made of billions of tiny electro-mechanical levers that can work up to 1000 faster and consume 100 times less power than traditional electromagnetic memory. Nanomech memory consists of thousands of tiny switches, each a few microns long and less than a micron thick (about 100 times thinner than a human hair),
created by using a template to lithographically etch a design, then dissolving unwanted layers. A tiny voltage applied to an electrode below each switch instructs it to represent "1" or "0," and the electrodes themselves can also detect which state a level is in. Currently the maximum storage capacity Cavendish has developed is only 256Kb which'll, you know, only take care of a handful of text files, but the plan is to have Nanomech chips capable of a several gigabytes worth of storage by 2006, for use in portable devices like digical cameras and audio players. Promises, promises.