IBM’s getting ready to lap the competition in the quantum computing race with the launch of new primitives for Qiskit Runtime. property= description.
Category: computing – Page 485
World’s first LED lights developed from rice husks
Milling rice to separate the grain from the husks produces about 100 million tons of rice husk waste globally each year. Scientists searching for a scalable method to fabricate quantum dots have developed a way to recycle rice husks to create the first silicon quantum dot (QD) LED light. Their new method transforms agricultural waste into state-of-the-art light-emitting diodes in a low-cost, environmentally friendly way.
The research team from the Natural Science Center for Basic Research and Development, Hiroshima University, published their findings on January 28, 2022, in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.
“Since typical QDs often involve toxic material, such as cadmium, lead, or other heavy metals, environmental concerns have been frequently deliberated when using nanomaterials. Our proposed process and fabrication method for QDs minimizes these concerns,” said Ken-ichi Saitow, lead study author and a professor of chemistry at Hiroshima University.
New transistor could cut 5% from world’s digital energy budget
A new spin on one of the 20th century’s smallest but grandest inventions, the transistor, could help feed the world’s ever-growing appetite for digital memory while slicing up to 5% of the energy from its power-hungry diet.
Following years of innovations from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Christian Binek and University at Buffalo’s Jonathan Bird and Keke He, the physicists recently teamed up to craft the first magneto-electric transistor.
Along with curbing the energy consumption of any microelectronics that incorporate it, the team’s design could reduce the number of transistors needed to store certain data by as much as 75%, said Nebraska physicist Peter Dowben, leading to smaller devices. It could also lend those microelectronics steel-trap memory that remembers exactly where its users leave off, even after being shut down or abruptly losing power.
Study highlights the possibility of building wave-shape-tolerant qubit gates
Quantum computers, machines that leverage quantum states to perform computations and store data, could soon revolutionize the computing industry, achieving significantly greater speeds and performance than existing computers. While countless companies worldwide, including Google and IBM as well as smaller start-ups, have started working on quantum technologies, the exact architecture that will lead to their mass production remains unclear.
Researchers at Leibniz University Hannover have recently conducted a theoretical study investigating the possibility of realizing flying-qubit gates for quantum computers that are insensitive to the wave shapes of photons, and also fully preserve these shapes during processing. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, could serve as the basis for the development of new gates that can process entangled photonic wave packets more effectively than unentangled ones.
“There are several candidate architectures for the development of quantum technology, including superconductors, ion traps, solid state, optical, and so on,” Ihar Babushkin, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “Regardless of what architecture we consider, photons, the quanta of light, will play an important role, since in almost all architectures the mediators between quantum information bits (qubits) are photons.”
Cloud server leasing can leave sensitive data up for grabs
Renting space and IP addresses on a public server has become standard business practice, but according to a team of Penn State computer scientists, current industry practices can lead to “cloud squatting,” which can create a security risk, endangering sensitive customer and organization data intended to remain private.
Cloud squatting occurs when a company, such as your bank, leases space and IP addresses—unique addresses that identify individual computers or computer networks—on a public server, uses them, and then releases the space and addresses back to the public server company, a standard pattern seen every day. The public server company, such as Amazon, Google, or Microsoft, then assigns the same addresses to a second company. If this second company is a bad actor, it can receive information coming into the address intended for the original company—for example, when you as a customer unknowingly use an outdated link when interacting with your bank—and use it to its advantage—cloud squatting.
“There are two advantages to leasing server space,” said Eric Pauley, doctoral candidate in computer science and engineering. “One is a cost advantage, saving on equipment and management. The other is scalability. Leasing server space offers an unlimited pool of computing resources so, as workload changes, companies can quickly adapt.” As a result, the use of clouds has grown exponentially, meaning almost every website a user visits takes advantage of cloud computing.
Amazing fossils from the day of the Dinosaur-ending asteroid strike may have been found
A completely intact dino-drumstick complete with skin and more. Just need 11 ancient herbs and spices.
The Tanis fossil site located in North Dakota in the United States of America is currently one of the most interesting places on Earth. Well that’s if you like dinosaurs and uncovering the ancient mysteries of our planet. Maybe you’re more into ancient computers that predict eclipses (opens in new tab). If not, uh, why not check out some of our hot Elden Ring content (opens in new tab)? We’ve got guides on the best builds (opens in new tab), how to survive (opens in new tab), and all sorts of stuff.
Ok, now that we’ve gotten rid of those people, back to the dinosaurs.
Could high-flying kites power your home?
Nearly a dozen companies are betting on computer-controlled, airborne wind energy to electrify the future.
By Kurt Kleiner.
Any kid who’s ever flown a kite has learned the lesson: Once you can get the kite off the ground and high into the air, you’re more likely to find a steady breeze to keep it aloft.