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Category: computing

Inside NTT’s Photonics Breakthroughs: A Roadmap to Light-Based Computing

This week we’re talking about photonics. My guests are Tim McKenna and Ryo Yanagimoto from the Physics and Informatics Laboratories at NTT.

Tim and I chat about balancing theoretical physics with real-world applications at NTT, his most exciting photonics projects, and the primary obstacles to replacing traditional electronics with photonics technologies.

Ryo and I dig into the game-changing potential of NTT’s programmable photonics chips. We discuss how their unique reconfigurability is shaking up traditional hardware manufacturing, facilitating a move from power-hungry electrical processing toward light-driven computation, even allowing chips to self-correct for environmental shifts.

Researchers find simple solution for extending the lifespan of LEDs made from glowing quantum dots

A new study led by MIT researchers could drive the development of more energy-efficient digital displays—such as flat-screen TVs, augmented and virtual reality headsets, smartphone screens, medical imaging devices and even large-area ambient lighting surfaces—that also generate richer, brighter colors.

The MIT scientists, in collaboration with researchers at Samsung, studied the microscopic changes that occur inside LEDs that use electrically excited quantum dots, which are precisely shaped nanoscale semiconductor particles that emit extremely pure colored light. The research appears in Science Advances.

Quantum dots are currently used in some of the computer and television displays with the best picture quality available. The efficiency of these displays could be further improved, and their manufacturing process further simplified, if the quantum dots could be electrically excited, as was first demonstrated in the quantum dot LED (QD-LED) structures more than 20 years ago.

Harvard scientists turn a silicon chip into a DNA writing machine

Scientists have created a silicon chip that can write dozens of DNA sequences simultaneously using electricity and water-based enzymes, offering a cleaner alternative to conventional DNA manufacturing. The breakthrough could eventually support portable DNA-writing devices and even massive DNA data storage, although new chemistry will be needed to scale the technology further.

Oratomic raises $300M to build a viable quantum computer that needs only 20K qubits

A number of companies, betting on various architectural approaches, are trying to build the first commercially viable quantum computer capable of significantly outperforming current systems.

Oratomic, which entered the race earlier this year with the goal of developing the first utility-scale quantum computer by the end of the decade, said this week that it has raised $300 million. The massive Series A round was co-led by ARCH Venture Partners, Spark Capital, and Khosla Ventures, with participation from Bezos Expeditions, Index Ventures, General Catalyst, Lowercarbon Capital, Bain Capital, and others.

Founded by Caltech physicists, Oratomic uses lasers, which act as optical tweezers, to hold individual atoms in place as the basis for its quantum computer.

Evidence reveals that the language of thought is not natural language

Some people find it useful to talk through their problems—but language isn’t necessary for logical reasoning, cognitive neuroscientists at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research say.

In research published in the journal PNAS, researchers led by MIT associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences Evelina Fedorenko have shown that people can perform well on tasks that require logical reasoning even if their language abilities are severely impaired. What’s more, brain imaging shows that language-processing parts of the brain are not called on for logical reasoning.

Philosophers, linguists and cognitive scientists have debated the relationship between language and thought for thousands of years, with many arguing that we use language to think. There are good reasons to suspect a close relationship between logic and language, acknowledges Hope Kean, a postdoctoral researcher and former K. Lisa Yang, Integrative Computational Neuroscience (ICoN) Center graduate fellow in Fedorenko’s lab.

Quantum optics may turn this rare visual phenomenon into an eye test

Modern life depends on quantum physics. It makes technologies such as GPS navigation, MRI scanners and computer chips possible. Now, the same science may also lead to a new way to test the health of our eyes. A University at Buffalo-led team has used a technique from quantum optics to make a little-known visual pattern produced inside the eye easier to see—potentially opening the door to a new way to test retinal health.

Known as Boehm’s brushes, these faint, two-lobed, bowtie-shaped patterns sometimes appear in peripheral vision when polarized light scatters off structures in the retina. Because people with retinal disease may be less likely to perceive them, scientists have long wondered whether they could serve as a biomarker of retinal health.

However, Boehm’s brushes are often too hard to see, even for people with healthy eyes, to be useful in clinical practice.

Using mechanical vibrations instead of magnetic memory for quantum computing

Quantum computers still face limits when it comes to storing information. Researchers at ETH Zurich are now turning to mechanical vibrations rather than electromagnetic memory. Their new vibrating memory can store significantly more information in a smaller volume. Combined with a suitable computer architecture, it also enables the efficient solution of complex computational problems.

The computer works almost like a guitar. The ETH Zurich quantum physicist Yiwen Chu and her team use tiny mechanical vibrations to store and process information. These vibrations behave much like the vibrating strings of a guitar, which produce musical notes.

What sounds like music is, in fact, quantum physics. The vibrations that Chu and her team work with are far beyond the range of human hearing. They occur deep inside a quantum chip, where they are used to store quantum information.

OpenMandriva Linux says contributor tried to sabotage the project

The OpenMandriva Linux project announced that it was the target of an attempted act of internal sabotage after a dispute among contributors.

The attempted destructive action extended from wiping GitHub repositories to pushing an empty package that could have damaged users’ systems.

OpenMandriva is an independent, community-run Linux distribution, forked from Mandriva Linux in 2012 and maintained by the OpenMandriva Association.

China Built a Working CPU With Transistors Just 3 Atoms Thick

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Disclosure: These are affiliate links. I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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