Silicon Valley is mostly a world of practical technology—applying principles from pure science to create handy gadgets. But today, Hewlett Packard announced a new electrical component born of theoretical physics. The device, a nanoscale component called a "memristor," requires no power to retain data, which it can store more densely than a hard drive and access about as fast as a computer’s RAM memory—potentially allowing it to replace both components in the future.

DLP (Digital Light Processing), a low-cost leader in big-screen HDTV technology, uses a chip with thousands of micromirrors to display pictures. But there’s a limit to how small the mirrors can become and still produce a good image. Texas Instruments, which makes the DLP chips, maxed out with its 1,280-by-720 array, short of the highest-quality HD resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels.