Labs blog

Memristor on National Public Radio

Sat, 10 May 2008 18:28:00 GMT

Got research? Call for proposals

Wed, 07 May 2008 15:42:00 GMT

HP Labs issued a call for research proposals from the academic community today so I took the opportunity to chat with Rich Friedrich, who directs our Open Innovation Office in charge of strategic university, business and government collaborations.

The Open Innovation Office is new for HP Labs, but collaboration is not. The idea is to better focus joint research projects to have a bigger impact both inside HP and in the scientific community overall.

"I want to use this office to partner with some of the brightest minds in the world," Rich says.

He also hopes to change the way HP and its partners collaborate and to explore using Web 2.0 social networking tools to pursue and support research.

'I'm interested in what a Research 2.0 world looks like," Rich told me.

"How do we build a research community that combines the deep technical expertise of university professors, the deep domain knowledge of industry and the financial resources of government to solve the pressing problems of today and set the agenda for tomorrow?

And how do you do it in a way that you harness collective wisdom and create a really vibrant community?"

Interesting questions – and tough challenges facing HP Labs and the research community overall.

As for the request for proposals, the list of the project areas includes:

· engineering quantum technologies
· sustainable solutions for data centers
· exascale data centers
· next-generation multimedia and collaboration
· high-speed document sensing and imaging in digital presses
· social computing
· cloud computing
· natural language processing and computational linguistics
· security analytics

Awards will generally range from $50,000 to $75,000 USD. The deadline to submit proposals is June 18, 2008.

Memristor mystery revisited: Your questions answered

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:37:00 GMT

The story I published last week about HP Labs' proof of the memristor as a fourth basic circuit element has generated (so far) nearly 600 reader responses, 50 written comments, lots of blog posts – and many, many questions.

I've gone back to the researchers for some answers.

How does this Memristor technology compare to existing Flash memory, which appears to have similar properties?
Flash and hard disk are non-volatile but very slow. There exists a significant opportunity for a new memory technology that is *both* fast and non-volatile. Memristor technology is an excellent candidate for this role.

I would have liked to see a more in-depth explanation of how a memristor actually works. Also explain more clearly how a memristor emulates human neuronal activity and how the memory state is maintained when the current is shut off to such a device.
The mathematical description of a memristor is explained in some detail within the Nature scientific journal article. A model system of mobile ions and electrons is used to illustrate the simple and more complicated dynamical memristor behavior. References to the original memristor theory work from 1971 are included there as well.

Could have used a bit more info. Does the memristor lend itself to FPGA or PLA-like designs? What are the energy requirements for switching the memristor, and what is the energy required to read it? Fundamental science is always the most interesting information.
A perceptive question -- yes, the memristor is well suited for FPGA designs. Energy requirements for switching the nanoscale memristor compare very favorably with Flash; energy requirements to read it can be even lower. A detailed description of the nanoscale physics leading to memristor action will be published in the near future and include a great deal more experimental evidence.

If you've got access to the journal Nature, you'll get a lot more information by reading the paper.

If you don't, there's a free article on the Nature site that describes this work, as well as excellent (free) articles in IEEE Spectrum Online, IEEE Times, ars technica and Wikipedia.

You may also want to check out tech veteran Scott Jordan's thoughtful blog on the background and implications behind the Memristor proof or read a more science-oriented post by Czech scientist Luboš Motl.

My favorite post, however, came from JR Powers in the flux capacity blog, who compares the Memristor to the flux capacitor in the film "Back to the Future." The flux capacitor. as you'll recall, was what made time travel possible.

Most innovative companies: HP Labs work paying off

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:07:00 GMT

As anyone who's been following HP Labs knows, the research group has been going through a huge transformation during the past eight months. Simply put, the goal is to do more research that makes a difference.

We trimmed the number of research projects from 150 to about 30. Researchers pitched projects -- nearly 100 in all -- to review boards and last week, the boards named the winners. Unfortunately, they're confidential so I can't share them here.

Anyway, some of what we've been up to is getting noticed.

Business Week published its "most innovative companies" list and HP came in at #15 -- up from #31 the previous year and #42 the year before that.

This is pretty exciting for me because I think we've always been doing cool stuff. So it's nice to have some external validation.

You can read what the magazine had to say in its article, "HP Labs Latest Experiment: Itself." Let me know what you think.

If you're curious about the photo in the article . . . it was taken in front of the lab's Palo Alto, CA, headquarters. The mosaic mural behind Labs Director Prith Banerjee was designed by abstract artist Mary Henry. These murals flank the entryway to what we call "Building 3."

Here's a better photo:

Why Blog?

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:27:00 GMT

I learn something new almost every day here at HP Labs. That's why I came here and that's why I stay.

I'm an ex-journalist who edits the lab's web site, covering the technologies, people and ideas coming from Hewlett-Packard's advanced research group.

I've been doing this for nine years. Luckily, the research here spans a wide area – cloud computing and services, sustainable IT, information management, nanotechnology, digital printing and tons more – and there is always something new.

But things keep moving faster at HP Labs and everywhere else. Last month, I launched a second site, the HP IdeaLab, which offers downloads, demos and more of emerging technologies from our researchers and engineers. So I've got even more going on.

In the past, I communicated via feature articles, news stories, videos and more. I'll still do that, but for lots of things the old way just isn't fast enough.

Thus, this blog. I'll use it to quickly share some of the tidbits I pick up in the hallways and coffee areas around here. Some of the items may wind up in feature stories or other places, but you'll often see them here first.

Before I came to HP, I spent a decade as a reporter and editor at The San Francisco Chronicle. So I'll also use the blog to share some of what I've learned about about writing (and talking) about technology. My angle: communicating tech in a way that non-PhDs will understand – and find compelling.

My first tip? Keep it concise.