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Could the future of computers be water? Researchers in Finland may have laid the groundwork by converting water droplets into digital data. The concept came out of a discovery that water droplets on a water-repellent surface ricochet off each other like billiard balls, reports Science Daily. Scientists added tracks and were able to predict the paths of the droplets, and from this they were able to create Boolean logic operations, the foundation of computing.
In an experiment, the scientists used a silver-coated copper surface to build a memory device in which water droplets acted as the bits of information. The technology has been named superhydrophobic droplet logic. Geekosystem's take: "The research released today is just a proof of concept for now, and it will be years before the technique sees any practical applications—if it ever does. It’s an interesting and heretofore unheard of concept, though, and one that if developed further could lead to simple logic devices that can run without any electrical power."
