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Comment by ac29 | Hacker News Reader

They explicitly say that isn't the case: " SDC memristors are distinct from (and superior to) Conductive Bridge RAM (CBRAM) technology and represent their own class of memristor."

https://knowm.org/downloads/Knowm_Memristors.pdf

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No, they make a claim and their only sources are their own work that doesn’t appear to have been peer reviewed or even vouched for by anyone that doesn’t work for them.

A true memristor as envisioned by Chua would be a revolutionary device of extreme utility. If knownm has what they say they have, the company would be worth billions. But they’ve been around for years and their website looks like every other scammy snake oil site out there.

Hah, I just noticed, the founder and the CTO have no industry experience and I can’t find anyone who does connected to the company. They started this scam fresh out of college.

And more: Their "angel investor" and "chief administrative officer" is the founder's mother, but this is very carefully sidestepped in the bios. Every time I look closer, it's one more classic sign of a scam.

Who are their process engineers? Where is their fab? Are they contracting with a third party? Who? Will they vouch for the technology?

Ahahahaha, as it were:

"In January of 2018 AHaH Computing was proven feasible with Knowm SDC Memristors on the open-source Memristor Discovery platform. As of January 2019, Knowm SDC Memristors passed four years of shelf-life testing and have shipped to researcher in over forty countries."

The "Memristor Discovery Platform" was made by... Knowm. (in other words, "it works because I say so").

Are you sure this isn't a practical joke?

We've been here before. Companies make all sorts of microchips that do a lot, a little, or nothing at all, and many are counterfeit and outright frauds. When a small company in New Mexico with no experience tells you they're going to revolutionize computing, just walk away.

While I think you make a lot of good points, I just want to point out a fun fact.

> When a small company in New Mexico with no experience tells you they're going to revolutionize computing, just walk away.

This is a perfect description for Microsoft in 1975, which was founded in New Mexico.

I know. :) It's fun in two ways, in fact. In one way, I could say "See? New Mexican companies are all criminals!", but in the other, I can point out that Microsoft, while scrappy, was basically trying to sell something they knew they could build - and everyone else more or less did, too. They made something important, and evolutionary, but not revolutionary.

Any company that says "The revolution is here!" is suspect, but if they can't actually give you a device that brings major, practical, commercially important changes, it's probably bullshit.

To be fair, MS did not revolutionize computing when it was founded. They didn't make anything that everyone else wasn't already making. I'm trying to think of a single thing that they did before the company was worth a billion dollars that was in any way revolutionary, technically. I can't think of a single thing (lots of stuff since then, BTW, but I think that's a bit unfair ;-) ). They executed well, both in development and in business and they had a good combination of good business foresight and lucky breaks. They were also pretty ruthless.

They sold software. Before Microsoft, there wasn't much (if any) of a market for just software, independent of the hardware.

Through-hole scale components are valuable for people to play with. They're accessible for researchers and hobbyists, but don't necessarily present potential for massive, commercial scaling.

Why don't you just talk to them yourself instead of ranting on YCNews. It amazes me how many people don't follow the guidelines on this site and the mods just let it fly. Every single one of the members of Knowm you can directly email. I know because I have actually talked to them. One lady is not on Linked in so you will have to talk to her through her her academic email.

Also your "ha no industry experience" is pretty laughable considering the entire Quantum Computing Industry is blossoming out of universities and PHDs. Musk had no Rocket ship industry experience, Zuckerberg had no social media industry experience, Paulmer Luckey had no hardware or entertainment industry experience, etc. I can go on forever.

Maybe instead of mocking someone elses work and slandering their name with barely a whiff of an idea of who they are and what they are doing you should engage in some sort of meaningful criticism or debate.

I'll not be responding or reading your reply. So feel free to do whatever with that knowledge. Just thought I should mention that this site is apparently supposed to be about hackers conversing in useful conversations and enlightening themselves. So maybe try to stick to that.

You don’t ask a scammer “are you a scammer”. And there is no “Quantum Computing Industry” yet outside some scams and hype. We remain nowhere near real quantum viability. And Musk hired people with experience. I can’t find anyone with experience connected to this company. Nobody talks about it publicly except the founder and hyped up press releases, and their documented staff are mostly dedicated to “intellectual property”. This is a scam and/or patent troll. End of story.

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