Programs like LogMeIn and other similar remote access software can be a boon when you need to access a file on your home machine while you're at work, but happens if there's a temporary power outage? You could drive back home to turn on your PC and grab the file while you're there, but according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Intel's developing a better solution that will allow people to power up their computers and retrieve files over the internet.

Called Remote Wake, the technology will reportedly work only on PCs using a "recently introduced chipset from Intel" and require a software install on the remote system. The technology is said to enable home computers to wake up from sleep mode for incoming VoIP calls and allow users to remotely access live TV shows, webcam feeds, photos, videos, and music.

"This is an extension of a technology that's been around in the server world for several years," said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group Inc. "On servers, you have something that's called a service processor that's always awake and can do things like monitor the system, do reboots, and run diagnostics. You'd have complete remote access to your home PC. You could do that now, but the computer has to be turned on all the time, and sleep mode can interfere with remote operations."

The technology is expected to become available as early as next week.

Rambus hoped to make strides with its RDRAM technology, and while it never did take off, it's only a matter of time before a new technology shakes up the random access memory market. Engineers and physicists from Germany think they'll be the ones to do it and have demonstrated what looks to be the quickest prototype yet of an advanced form of RAM, one which challenges the fundamental speed-limit for the process.

Called magnetoresistive random access memory, MRAM uses a faster and more energy efficient version of today's modules, which store a digital 1 or 0 as the level of charge in the capacitor. By comparison, MRAM stores the same information by changing the north-south direction of a tiny magnet's magnetic field, with each variable magnet positioned next to one with a fixed field. To read the stored value, a current runs through the pair to discover the direction of the variable magnet's field.

There are different types of MRAM technologies, and the one most manufacturers are hedging their bets on is called spin-torque MRAM, which involves spinning electrons to flip the magnetic fields. In what could see the technology emerge in as little as just a few years, German researchers have now built a spin-torque system from tiny pillars just 165nm tall that looks to be dramatically faster than any other. The top of the pillar acts as a variable magnet that stores the data, with fixed magnets occupying the bottom. When a current passes through, the electrons reach the pillars' other end and flip the variable magnet region's field to match.

 NewScientistTech has much more on the topic, and we want to hear what you think about the emerging RAM technology by posting below.