Flip on your PC or laptop, and start waiting. The reason you need to boot up-loading software from your hard drive into your random-access memory (RAM) chip-is that most electronic computer memory requires power to keep data intact. Take away the power, and the memory evaporates. For years, researchers have tried to develop fast and cheap memory that stores data as magnetic orientation, which stays fixed whether or not the power is on. Now, an early version of this technology-called magnetic random-access memory, or MRAM-is moving into production.

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