Image: Memristor close up.
Hewlett Packard used to be the dominant force in the PC market, but in the past few years PC dominance has become less important and Lenovo — the Chinese rival — has overtaken the U.S. company in sales.
In order to fix the dire trend, HP is working on a computer named The Machine and a new operating system, called Carbon. HP Labs are currently working on this and HP is heavily investing in the new technological advancement.
The Machine will be one of the first computers to use a new technology, called Memristor. The new storage bundles short and long term storage (RAM and HDD/SDD) together, speeding up performance on the system.
One of the main reasons for slow speeds on a computer is due to the two different storage states. By removing RAM and creating a super-fast storage components for all types of data, it knocks a few seconds off every input.
The Machine would be valuable to companies like Google and Facebook, who invest millions in the fastest speeds. The Machine will also be more energy and size efficient, alongside offering fiber wires internally instead of typical copper.
HP’s first goal is to get The Machine into the enterprise, first running Linux++ for 2015 and then running the new Carbon OS by 2016. It is unclear when or if HP will bring The Machine to consumers — even the component would be a big upgrade for most machines, if Microsoft makes Windows 10 support the technology.
In terms of Carbon OS, HP is remaining mum, it is not clear what advantages it will bring over Mac OS X or Windows. If HP is testing Linux++ first, it may be a simple variant of Linux, built for enterprise and servers.
