This is a Good Thing (Score 4)

For a little background (I'm a chemistry grad student working in this area), the maturing of this technology is good to see, after many years of battle vs. magnetic storage for both CD-RW and non-volatile memory. I think the potential here is very great because of the relative prodcution simplicity and cost benefit compared to competing technologies. This stuff is not vaporware! The technology of phase change media (based upon optically/electrically induced reversible amorphous to crystalline transitions) has been researched extensively over the last two decades by big names like Philips, Micron, 3M, IBM, etc. But magnetic storage had more research money for quite awhile for alot of reasons; however, it's phase change media that eventually got used for your CD-RW (not CD-R though...) discs. Making non-volatile RAM was the next obvious target, but latency was a problem until recently (and the inertia problem of changing manufacturing methods). For some more info, goto the website of the parent company Energy Conversion Devices. It's based out of Troy, Michigan and was founded by Stan Ovshinsky, who's somewhat of a rogue in the physics community. But it's a cool company that also uses a similar technology to make surge protectors against the EMP from a nuclear blast! :)