"Racetrack memory, a solid-state breakthrough technology, is a potential replacement for hard drives and successor to flash in handheld devices. A storage device with no moving parts, it uses the spin of electrons to access and move data to atomically precise locations on nanowires 1,000 times finer than a human hair. This technique combines the high performance and reliability of flash with the low cost and high capacity of the hard-disk drive. It could allow electronic manufacturers to develop devices that store much more information — as much as a factor of 100 times greater — while using less energy than today’s designs."