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Category: computing – Page 331

In a new breakthrough, researchers at the University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with Ruhr University Bochum, have solved a problem that has caused quantum researchers headaches for years. The researchers can now control two quantum light sources rather than one. Trivial as it may seem to those uninitiated in quantum, this colossal breakthrough allows researchers to create a phenomenon known as quantum mechanical entanglement. This, in turn, opens new doors for companies and others to exploit the technology commercially.

Going from one to two is a minor feat in most contexts. But in the world of quantum physics, doing so is crucial. For years, researchers around the world have strived to develop stable quantum light sources and achieve the phenomenon known as quantum mechanical entanglement – a phenomenon, with nearly sci-fi-like properties, where two light sources can affect each other instantly and potentially across large geographic distances. Entanglement is the very basis of quantum networks and central to the development of an efficient quantum computer.

Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute published a new result in the highly esteemed journal Science, in which they succeeded in doing just that. According to Professor Peter Lodahl, one of the researchers behind the result, it is a crucial step in the effort to take the development of quantum technology to the next level and to “quantize” society’s computers, encryption, and the internet.

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It actually makes a lot of sense from a computing standpoint.

If life is common in our Universe, and we have every reason to suspect it is, why do we not see evidence of it everywhere?

This is the essence of the Fermi Paradox, a question that has plagued astronomers and cosmologists almost since the birth of modern astronomy.

It is also the reasoning behind the Hart-TIpler Conjecture, one of the many (many!) proposed resolutions, which asserts that if advanced life had emerged in our galaxy sometime in the past, we would see signs of their activity everywhere we looked. Possible indications include self-replicating probes, megastructures, and other Type III-like activity.

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LCARS is the fictional computer operating system used by Starfleet starships in several Star Trek TV shows and films. The system is currently displayed in the animated comedy Trek series Lower Decks. Now, one intrepid fan has adapted the Lower Decks version of LCARS into a “crazy fan project:” Project RITOS.

RITOS is a webpage that recreates the LCARS system. It’s a fun little site to poke around on. But, since this is just a recreation, there’s no actual functionality you can incorporate onto your computer. As the RITOS About page states, you just “point & click & watch. There are no goals nor wrong thing to do here. It’s just a mindless site.”

It may be mindless, but it’s also a faithful recreation of the LCARS system as depicted not just in Star Trek: Lower Decks but also in The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. Users can click around into various displays that show crew quarters, a ship map of the Cerritos (the Federation starship in Lower Decks), JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) images, and a Sick Bay screen. There are plenty of fun things to click on and little easter eggs to uncover for dedicated Trek fans.

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Leading scientists in the field predict that lithium niobate chips, which are extremely thin, will surpass silicon chips in light-based technologies. These chips have a wide range of potential applications, from detecting ripe fruit from a distance on Earth to guiding navigation on the Moon.

According to the scientists, the artificial crystal of lithium niobate is the preferred platform for these technologies because of its superior performance and advancements in manufacturing techniques.

RMIT University’s Distinguished Professor Arnan Mitchell and University of Adelaide’s Dr. Andy Boes led this team of global experts to review lithium niobate’s capabilities and potential applications in the journal Science.

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Considering a “computer” as anything that processes information by taking an input and producing an output leads to the obvious questions, what kind of objects could perform computations? And how small can a computer be? As transistors approach the limit of miniaturisation, these questions are more than mere curiosities, their answers could form the basis of a new computing paradigm.

In a new paper in EPJ Plus (“Towards Single Atom Computing via High Harmonic Generation”) by Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, researcher Gerard McCaul, and his co-authors demonstrate that even one of the more basic constituents of matter — atoms — can act as a reservoir for computing where all input-output processing is optical.

“We had the idea that the capacity for computation is a universal property that all physical systems share, but within that paradigm, there is a great profusion of frameworks for how one would go about actually trying to perform computations,” McCaul says.

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A new paper has proposed an absolutely wild idea. What if aliens are creating black holes to use as quantum storage? It sounds crazy, but some scientists say it could give us a solution to the Fermi Paradox, which essentially states that if life is common in our universe, why have we not found evidence of it beyond Earth?

This paradox has caused quite a few ripples throughout the scientific community, especially within parts that believe alien life is out there, just waiting to be discovered. The new paper has yet to be peer-reviewed, but it was created by a team of German and Georgian scientists who say we may be looking in the wrong direction in our search for alien life.

Currently, we rely on radio signals to search for signs of life out in the universe. But, these researchers suggest that we should instead approach black holes as if alien civilizations created them as massive quantum computers to store data in. As such, we should be looking for technosignatures emanating from megastructures like pulsars, white dwarf stars, and black holes.

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Over the past few years, material scientists and electronics engineers have been trying to fabricate new flexible inorganic materials to create stretchable and highly performing electronic devices. These devices can be based on different designs, such as rigid-island active cells with serpentine-shape/fractal interconnections, neutral mechanical planes or bunked structures.

Despite the significant advancements in the fabrication of stretchable materials, some challenges have proved difficult to overcome. For instance, materials with wavy or serpentine interconnect designs commonly have a limited area density and fabricating proposed stretchable materials is often both difficult and expensive. In addition, the stiffness of many existing stretchable materials does not match that of human skin tissue, making them uncomfortable on the skin and thus not ideal for creating wearable technologies.

Researchers at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Seoul National University (SNU), and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have recently fabricated a vacuum-deposited elastic polymer for developing stretchable electronics. This material, introduced in Nature Electronics, could be used to create stretchy field-effect transistors (FETs), which are primary components of most electronic devices on the market today.

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