Scientists at the University of Plymouth are in the early stages of developing tech that would allow humans to control quantum computers with their thoughts.
We’ve just taken another step closer to time crystals that can be used for practical applications.
New experimental work has yielded a room-temperature time crystal in a system that is not isolated from its ambient surroundings.
This, the researchers say, paves the way for chip-scale time crystals that can be used in real-world settings, away from expensive laboratory equipment required to keep them running.
Marco Pistoia, engineer, and head of the FLARE Research group at JPMorgan Chase emphasized the importance of building secure blockchains before quantum computing changes the “security landscape” of blockchain and crypto.
BEIJING, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) — China has released a new quantum computing programming software named “isQ-Core” and deployed it to the country’s superconducting quantum hardware platform.
It represents a significant step forward in the combination of home-grown quantum computing hardware and software, said its primary developer, the Institute of Software under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
According to the institute, the isQ-Core has the advantages of simplicity, ease-of-use, high efficiency, solid scalability, and high reliability.
Historically, the first program you write for a new computer language is “Hello World,” or, if you are in Texas, “Howdy World.” But with quantum computing on the horizon, you need something better. Like “Hello Many Worlds.” [IonQ] proposes what that looks like and then writes it in seven different quantum languages in a post you should check out.
Here’s the description of the simple program:
The basic quantum program we’ll write is simple. It creates a fully-entangled state between two qubits, and then measures this state. This state is sometimes called a Bell State, or Bell Pair, after physicist John Stewart Bell.
While it’s difficult to put something as vast, conceptual, and, frankly still emerging as the metaverse in quantifiable terms, Jon Radoff breaks it down logically and thoroughly.
When it comes to describing the metaverse, definitions and opinions abound. And while it’s difficult to put something as vast, conceptual, and, frankly, still emerging as the metaverse into quantifiable terms, Jon Radoff, entrepreneur, author and game designer, breaks it down logically and thoroughly in Measuring the Metaverse. He moves up the value chain from infrastructure at the bottom to experience at the top, stopping at human interface, decentralization, spatial computing, creator economy, and discovery along the way.
A common framework is necessary in Radoff’s view of the metaverse. He writes, “And while there will be many proprietary (and very fun) theme parks in the metaverse, I’m even more excited by the opportunity in the Switzerlands: a metaverse powered by a robust creator-economy enabled through decentralization.”
Continue reading “Understanding the 7 layers of the metaverse” »
Northwestern University synthetic biologists have developed a low-cost, easy-to-use, hand-held device that can let users know—within mere minutes—if their water is safe to drink.
The new device works by using powerful and programmable genetic networks, which mimic electronic circuits, to perform a range of logic functions.
Among the DNA-based circuits, for example, the researchers engineered cell-free molecules into an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a ubiquitous circuit type found in nearly all electronic devices. In the water-quality device, the ADC circuit processes an analog input (contaminants) and generates a digital output (a visual signal to inform the user).
A light in the dark — If quantum computers continue to advance, and perform more calculations for less steep costs, Rinaldi and his team might be able to reveal what happens inside of black holes, beyond the event horizon — a region immediately surrounding a black hole’s singularity, within which not even light, nor perhaps time itself, can escape the immense force of gravity.
In practical terms, the event horizon prevents all conventional, light-based observations. But, and perhaps more compelling, the team hopes that further advances in this line of inquiry will do more than peek inside a black hole, and unlock what physicists have dreamed of since the days of Einstein: a unified theory of physics.
Believe it or not, graphics card prices seem to be headed down. 3D Center has been tracking and reporting pricing trends for GPUs in Germany and Austria. There’s good news: prices are indeed on a downward slope. Even better; this is the third month in a row they have declined, so we can’t just write it off as a one one-time fluke. That said, here’s the bad news: even if this trend continues, which is a big if, prices are still so inflated that months of “progress” may only result in GPUs returning to MSRP, supply issues notwithstanding. At this point we’ll take what we can get.
The report by 3D Center for February mirrors the company’s report from last month, which we covered here. There’s a noticeable downward trend in pricing for both AMD and Nvidia GPUs. It’s almost shocking to see after so many reports of price increases. The trend is undeniable. According to 3D Center, the February price of AMD’s Radeon RDNA2 cards has fallen 18 percent, to 145 percent over MSRP. For Nvidia’s Ampere GPUs, prices fell 20 percent, leaving them 157 percent over MSRP.
Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have succeeded in developing a simple hydrocarbon molecule with a logic gate function, similar to that in transistors, in a single molecule. The discovery could make electric components on a molecular scale possible in the future. The results are published in Nature Communications.
Manufacturing very small components is an important challenge in both research and development. One example is transistors—the smaller they are, the faster and more energy efficient our computers become. But is there a limit to how small logic gates can become? And is it possible to create electric machines on a molecular scale? Yes, perhaps, is the answer from a chemistry research team at Lund University.
“We have developed a simple hydrocarbon molecule that changes its form, and at the same time goes from insulating to conductive, when exposed to electric potential. The successful formula was to design a so-called anti-aromatic ring in a molecule so that it becomes more robust and can both receive and relay electrons,” says Daniel Strand, chemistry researcher at Lund University.
