Modern society has numerous applications of Faraday’s law of induction, as we will explore in this chapter and others. At this juncture, let us mention several that involve recording information using magnetic fields.

Some computer hard drives apply the principle of magnetic induction. Recorded data are made on a coated, spinning disk. Historically, reading these data was made to work on the principle of induction. However, most input information today is carried in digital rather than analog form—a series of 0s or 1s are written upon the spinning hard drive. Therefore, most hard drive readout devices do not work on the principle of induction but use a technique known as giant magnetoresistance. Giant magnetoresistance is the effect of a large change of electrical resistance induced by an applied magnetic field to thin films of alternating ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic layers. It is one of the first large successes of nanotechnology.

Graphics tablets, or tablet computers where a specially designed pen is used to draw digital images, also apply induction principles. The tablets discussed here are labeled as passive tablets since other designs use either a battery-operated pen or optical signals to write with. The passive tablets are different than the touch tablets and phones many of us use regularly, but may still be found when signing your signature at a cash register. Underneath the screen are tiny wires running across the length and width of the screen? The pen has a tiny magnetic field coming from the tip. As the tip brushes across the screen, a changing magnetic field is felt in the wires which translates into an induced emf that is converted into the line you just drew.