Here’s a bit of Mac news, some more speculation on what will be released at MWSF in a few days. They’re saying that new Mac laptops may use flash memory associated with the CPU so that startup and general performance is increased.

Huh? Let’s go over that. First, you have to understand what “volatile” means in computerese. See, a computer’s CPU and RAM (like its ‘brain’ and ‘memory’) can only hold data while they are turned on. Switch off the power, and they go blank. That’s “volatile.” Imagine it’s like you lose all your memory whenever you go to sleep, and have to re-learn everything when you wake up. That’s why a computer takes so long to start up: it’s loading all the data from the relatively slow hard drive (which is non-volatile) back into the relatively fast RAM and the CPU–a lot of information taking a long path to its destination. The main point is that when you boot up, the computer has to ‘re-learn’ how to work.

Using flash memory speeds that up. Flash memory is both chip-based and non-volatile. Shut down the computer, and the flash chip still retains all the data. Turn the computer on, and the data (stored in a “cache,” located on or near the CPU) is instantly available. Your computer should be able to start faster and perform better.

This would simply be the first step in a line to even faster computers, however. Many researchers are working to perfect something called “MRAM,” a magnetic-based chip technology which would make CPUs and RAM (not just the caches) non-volatile. In other words, if you turned off your computer, it would never forget anything. Turn on the power, and the computer turns on instantly, like a light switch.

You would probably still need to re-boot the operating systems from time to time as they get unstable when used continuously over time. Still, it would be a great feature–like changing from a crank-start automobile to a push-button Prius.

But until MRAM becomes a common reality, flash caches will do quite nicely, I’m sure. It does make me wonder, however, at how many innovations will really come out of Apple at the MWSF, so many have been reported. Probably, as usual, fewer than half will be true. But the closer we come to the keynote, more accurate information will start leaking out.