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Category: computing – Page 849

The next step in nanotechnology

Nearly every other year the transistors that power silicon computer chip shrink in size by half and double in performance, enabling our devices to become more mobile and accessible. But what happens when these components can’t get any smaller? George Tulevski researches the unseen and untapped world of nanomaterials. His current work: developing chemical processes to compel billions of carbon nanotubes to assemble themselves into the patterns needed to build circuits, much the same way natural organisms build intricate, diverse and elegant structures. Could they hold the secret to the next generation of computing?

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.
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Cleaning up quantum devices

Latest update on the NPL Research on how to have cleaner Quantum Devices.

A paper, based on NPL collaborative research, has been published in the journal Physical Review Letters The work paves the way for the identification and elimination of small amounts of surface defects whose presence on the surfaces of solid state quantum devices is detrimental to their performance.

The research was the result of a fruitful collaboration between NPL’s Quantum Detection Group, the Quantum Device Physics Laboratory at Chalmers University of Technology and the Institute of Chemical Physics at the University of Latvia.

Artistic impression of noise in quantum circuits

The advancement of quantum computing faces a tremendous challenge in improving the reproducibility and robustness of quantum circuits. One of the biggest problems in this field is the presence of noise intrinsic to all these devices, the origin of which has puzzled scientists for many decades.

How we can finally win the fight against aging

I really wanna know why people don’t get this.

For more information on Aubrey de Grey, please visit our website www.tedxmuenchen.de

Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist based Mountain View, California, USA, and is the Chief Science Officer of SENS Research Foundation, a California-based 501©(3) biomedical research charity that performs and funds laboratory research dedicated to combating the aging process. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Rejuvenation Research, the world’s highest-impact peer-reviewed journal focused on intervention in aging. He received his BA in computer science and Ph.D. in biology from the University of Cambridge. His research interests encompass the characterisation of all the accumulating and eventually pathogenic molecular and cellular side-effects of metabolism (“damage”) that constitute mammalian aging and the design of interventions to repair and/or obviate that damage.

Twitter: @aubreydegrey

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Continue reading “How we can finally win the fight against aging” | >

Boston startup Whitewood Encryption Systems awarded patent for encryption to fend off quantum computers

Hmmmm.

Computers based on quantum mechanics have been in the realm of science fiction for years, but recently companies like Google (Nasdaq: GOOGL), and even the National Security Agency, have started to think practically about what their existence would mean.

These super-powerful computers would be exciting in many respects, but they would also be able to break the methods of data encryption that currently make it safe to browse the internet or pay for things online.

First ever blueprint unveiled to construct a large scale quantum computer

A blueprint for QC larger servers mass production. The question is; is it the right blueprint for everyone? Not sure.

An international team, led by a scientist from the University of Sussex, have today unveiled the first practical blueprint for how to build a quantum computer, the most powerful computer on Earth.

This huge leap forward towards creating a universal quantum computer is published today (1 February 2017) in the influential journal Science Advances. It has long been known that such a computer would revolutionise industry, science and commerce on a similar scale as the invention of ordinary computers. But this new work features the actual industrial blueprint to construct such a large-scale machine, more powerful in solving certain problems than any computer ever constructed before.

Once built, the computer’s capabilities mean it would have the potential to answer many questions in science; create new, lifesaving medicines; solve the most mind-boggling scientific problems; unravel the yet unknown mysteries of the furthest reaches of deepest space; and solve some problems that an ordinary computer would take billions of years to compute.

Blueprint for a microwave trapped ion quantum computer

More detailed write up on QC Blueprint introduced this week. It does seem to try to address scalability; however, the real test is when we test a smart device and a small server with the blueprint.

The availability of a universal quantum computer may have a fundamental impact on a vast number of research fields and on society as a whole. An increasingly large scientific and industrial community is working toward the realization of such a device. An arbitrarily large quantum computer may best be constructed using a modular approach. We present a blueprint for a trapped ion–based scalable quantum computer module, making it possible to create a scalable quantum computer architecture based on long-wavelength radiation quantum gates. The modules control all operations as stand-alone units, are constructed using silicon microfabrication techniques, and are within reach of current technology. To perform the required quantum computations, the modules make use of long-wavelength radiation–based quantum gate technology. To scale this microwave quantum computer architecture to a large size, we present a fully scalable design that makes use of ion transport between different modules, thereby allowing arbitrarily many modules to be connected to construct a large-scale device. A high error–threshold surface error correction code can be implemented in the proposed architecture to execute fault-tolerant operations. With appropriate adjustments, the proposed modules are also suitable for alternative trapped ion quantum computer architectures, such as schemes using photonic interconnects.

Black holes on an electronic chip

Watch out for the black holes in those QC chips.

Eindhoven professor Rembert Duine has proposed a way to simulate black holes on an electronic chip. This makes it possible to study fundamental aspects of black holes in a laboratory on earth. Additionally, the underlying research may be useful for quantum technologies. Duine (also working at Utrecht University) and colleagues from Chile published their results today in Physical Review Letters.

“Right now, it’s purely theoretical,” says Duine, “but all the ingredients already exist. This could be happening in a lab one or two years from now.” One possibility is in the group of Physics of Nanostructures in the Department of Applied Physics. According to Duine, in these labs experiments are being done that are necessary to create this type of black holes.

Event horizon

Black holes in space are so dense that nothing can escape their gravitational pull once it passes a point of no return called the event horizon. The researchers have now found a way to make such points of no return for spin waves, fluctuations that propagate in magnetic materials. When an electric current runs through the material, the electrons drag these waves along.

New Synthetic Human Lung Is (Quite Literally) a Breath of Fresh Air

In Brief

  • Czech scientists have developed a 3D printed model of a functioning lung that can simulate real-life conditions like asthma and other chronic breathing problems.
  • Their model could lead to new treatment options for those suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, which claim more than 3 million lives every year.

3D printing is opening so many new doors in the medical field. The technology allows researchers and doctors to manipulate the finest design nuances of models as well as the properties of the materials used to build them. These 3D printed models of organs, bones, and other organic subjects are valuable tools for both students learning the basics and medical experts testing new treatments and conducting experimental research.

Now, Czech scientists from the Brno University of Technology have developed a 3D printed model of a functioning lung that can simulate real-life conditions like asthma and other chronic breathing problems. They believe that their 3D printed mechanical model and its computer-based counterpart can be used to devise new, more precise treatment methods. It would be particularly useful in creating a reference standard for inhaled drugs. “This model will show whether an inhaled drug will settle in the concrete areas where we need it to,” Miroslav Jicha, the head of the research team, told Reuters.

When the Mother of Invention Is a Machine, Who Gets Credit?

What do the Oral-B CrossAction toothbrush, about a thousand musical compositions and even a few recent food recipes all have in common?

They were invented by computers, but you won’t find a nonhuman credited with any of these creations on U.S. patents. One patent attorney would like to see that changed.

Ryan Abbott is petitioning to address what he sees as more than a quirk in current laws but a fundamental flaw in policy that could have wide-ranging implications in areas of patent jurisprudence, economics and beyond if his proposals are adopted.

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