Lifeboat Foundation

Google unveiled software aimed at making it easier for scientists to use the quantum computers in a move designed to give a boost to the nascent industry.

The software, which is open-source and free to use, could be used by chemists and material scientists to adapt algorithms and equations to run on quantum computers. It comes at a time when Google, IBM, Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp. and D-Wave Systems Inc. are all pushing to create quantum computers that can be used for commercial applications.

Neat!

Continue reading “A sneak peak at radical future user interfaces for phones, computers, and VR” »

D-Wave system shows quantum computers can learn to detect particle signatures in mountains of data, but doesn’t outpace conventional methods — yet.

• By Davide Castelvecchi, Nature on October 22, 2017

Researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have used liquid metal to create two-dimensional materials no thicker than a few atoms that have never before been seen in nature.

The incredible breakthrough will not only revolutionise the way we do chemistry but could be applied to enhance data storage and make faster electronics. The “once-in-a-decade” discovery has been published in Science.

The researchers dissolve metals in liquid metal to create very thin oxide layers, which previously did not exist as layered structures and which are easily peeled away.

Continue reading “Liquid metal discovery ushers in new wave of chemistry and electronics” »

A tiny self-organized mesh full of artificial synapses recalls its experiences and can solve simple problems. Its inventors hope it points the way to devices that match the brain’s energy-efficient computing prowess.

North Korea’s impressive cyber capabilities, explained.

Sending satellites into space is going to continue to get cheaper since SpaceX proved it could reliably launch refurbished rockets. This is going to open up space exploration to more entities allowing for the continued democratization of space. Other technological advances could make a global space centered sharing economy a real possibility.

The rise of the internet and the ubiquity of mobile computing devices have changed everything from travel and shopping to politics – think Uber, Amazon, and Twitter.

Intel’s quantum computing efforts have yielded a new 17-qubit chip, which the company has just delivered to its partner in that field, QuTech in the Netherlands. It’s not a major advance in the actual computing power or applications — those are still in very early days — but it’s a step toward production systems that can be ordered and delivered to spec rather than experimental ones that live in a physics lab somewhere.

Intel’s celebration of this particular chip is a bit arbitrary; 17 isn’t some magic number in the quantum world, nor does this chip do any special tricks other quantum computer systems can’t. Intel is just happy that its history and undeniable expertise in designing and fabricating chips and architectures is paying off in a new phase of computing.

I chatted with Intel’s director of quantum hardware, Jim Clarke, about the new system.

Manufacturing will be key to quantum computing, but don’t throw out your current processor just yet.