There’s something about having servants – even if they seem to love their jobs – that is vaguely disturbing. It offends many Americans’ sense of egalitarianism. But robots are different. They aren’t human. And that’s a big part of their potential appeal. They don’t eat, they don’t get offended and they don’t ask for pay raises. So if a robot could do what a human servant could do, wouldn’t you want a robot?

They’ll keep our homes, track our finances and clean up after our pets. Best of all, they’ll be robotic. So you won’t have to feel guilty. You won’t even have to tip them! Within a few years, truly sophisticated consumer robots will be common in high-income households. Before you know it, incredibly capable general-purpose robots will be seen as essential appliances.

It’s funny how hard it is for people to accept big, obvious change. Even when the world is transforming in front of their eyes, lots of folks don’t see it. I remember when the prevailing opinion was that personal computers were a novelty. The real money, analysts said, would be in mainframes. Do you remember when the Internet itself was viewed as merely interesting, but with little financial potential?

If you go back further, you’ll see this same inability to recognize trends with cars. At first, the notion that people would want to own automobiles was too much for the mainstream. Sitting in traffic these days, it’s hard too imagine such shortsightedness was once conventional wisdom.

Those who understood that those changes were inevitable made fortunes. They didn’t worry about timing or recessions. They just invested in a portfolio of early carmakers. Despite the fact that some automakers crashed and burned, those who bought diversified portfolios of car stocks made vast fortunes. That’s what I’m urging investors to do with robotics now: build a diversified portfolio of the companies that hold key competitive positions in the industry.

Already, some low-end robots are exploding into new markets. Even as consumers cut back dramatically last quarter, sales at one of the robot companies I follow increased dramatically during the first quarter. This trend will continue. Selected robot companies are bucking dismal economic conditions. Moreover, military spending on robotics continues to expand and buoy many robot companies. Just days ago, the U.S. Army ordered 125 robots from a company I have been following.

The proposed Obama budget increases funding for the Department of Defense programs that move robotics forward. The trend toward unmanned robotic weaponry, like iRobot’s PackBot, is unstoppable. Military conflict will not go away, and robots offer many developed nations a way to reduce battlefield casualties.

As Moore’s Law continues to improve computer technologies, the decision to risk robots, rather than humans, will be easier and easier to make. Regardless of consumer spending trends, we will see far more advanced robots in the battlefield and on crime scenes. Those advances will, in turn, accelerate the domestic and industrial robotic industries.

Believe me. You want to own robots.

Part II: Memristors

Memristors are the “fourth circuit variable” hypothesized in 1971. Until now, though, three circuit variables have long been the basis for all electronic circuits. They are resistance, capacitance and inductance.

Last year, HP made news by demonstrating a practical application of memristance. At the time, I was astonished that the development had occurred so soon after HP’s announcement that it had discovered a way to build memristors.

HP may have been only the first group to recognize what it had on its hands. Researchers from such institutions like the University of Parma in Italy and UC San Diego have also built prototype memristors from polymers and metallic oxides. They too are exploring applications for this exciting new technology and could end up holding important memristor intellectual property.

Nearly all existing commercially available transistor-based technology is capable of assuming only two states per element, either 1 or 0. So by necessity, all calculation is done in binary.

Memristors, because they can assume different states corresponding to different levels of resistance, are multi-state elements. This quality facilitates a much higher data density. Memristor storage density will be at least 10 times that which is achievable using current transistor-based technology. Imagine the storage capacity of a large hard drive on the head of a pin.

Moreover, memristor memory is nonvolatile. It retains its state even when no power is applied to the circuit. This has tremendous advantages over current memory technologies that lose their data when the power is switched off. Furthermore, unlike current transistor technology, memristance becomes more pronounced and efficient the smaller the element is. In transistors, small size and high density lead to greater power loss and heat production. The opposite is true with memristors. Nanotech-level scaling actually amplifies the memristive properties of the individual elements.

It’s not only computer scientists who are excited by these developments. Biologists are beginning to realize the potential memristors have to mimic organic or biological computing.

Because many of the properties of memristors are so similar to brain cells they may be used to imitate brain functions. If, as scientists believe, they can be used to mimic synaptic function, they could bring true artificial intelligence much closer.

Recently, researchers have been able to model the learning ability of the amoeba with a simple memristive circuit. According to HP, these circuits can “remember and associate a series of events in a manner similar to the way a human brain recognizes patterns.” In other words, the circuits learn.

While HP has grabbed the headlines, such devices are currently being developed for use as nonvolatile resistive memory by various companies. Some, like HP, are probably too big to be breakthrough technology stocks. Samsung is one of the giants working on the technology. On the other hand, Micron Technology and Unity Semiconductor apparently have some patent rights, at least, to memristor technologies. If they’re significant, these companies could be small enough to experience transformational profits that rival Intel’s historic growth.

It is only a matter of time before this new technology begins to break through. We will be monitoring this area for developments and will keep you informed.

P.S.: The question now, of course, is will there be a memristor pure play. One of my colleagues (an IT engineer) is currently talking to researchers about that very question… Get on my list and become one of the first to learn about these transformational companies as they develop. Here’s a link.

Source: Robots and Memristors