Nanotechnology + Superconductivity = Spintronics

karvind writes "Spintronics is a nanoscale technology in which information is carried not by the electron's charge, as it is in conventional microchips, but by the electron's intrinsic spin and if a reliable way can be found to control and manipulate the spins spintronic devices could offer higher data processing speeds, lower electric consumption, and many other advantages over conventional chips--including, perhaps, the ability to carry out radically new quantum computations. PhysOrg is reporting that University of Notre Dame physicist Boldizsar Janko and his colleagues have found a way to achieve this control using a magnetic semiconductor, insulator and superconducting material stack of thicknesses of order of few dozen nanometers. IBM and Stanford are also looking into spintronics."

Spintronics?

[EtherAlchemist]

Are you SURE this isn't a technology developed jointly by the press and the White House?

Microsoft in on this, too

[AthenianGadfly]

Microsoft is reportedly already somewhat advanced in spintronics. A company offical reportedly said "We consider ourselves to be industry leaders when it comes to manipulation using spin."

DIY?

[Doc Ruby]

What's the cheapest device that I, a layman, can buy to set the spin of large amounts of electrons (several coulombs per second) to a certain value?

Re:DIY?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

What's the cheapest device that I, a layman, can buy to set the spin of large amounts of electrons

A fridge magnet.

(several coulombs per second) to a certain value?

A very big, precisely calibrated fridge magnet.

Actually...

[Eradicator2k3]

...Nanotechnology + Superconductivity = Supertechnonanocondoexpialidocious

a quantum computer?

[admactanium]

it has already imagined a beowolf cluster of itself!