Lifeboat Foundation

Computers are built around logic: performing mathematical operations using circuits. Logic is built around things such as Adders—not the snake; the basic circuit that adds together two numbers. This is as true of today’s microprocessors as all those going back to the very beginning of computing history. You could go back to an abacus and find that, at some fundamental level, it does the same thing as your shiny gaming PC. It’s just much, much less capable.

Nowadays, processors can do a lot of mathematical calculations using any number of complex circuits in a single clock. And a lot more than just add two numbers together, too. But to get to your shiny new gaming CPU, there has been a process of iterating on the classical computers that came before, going back centuries.

A team led by Academician Prof. Guangcan Guo from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) provides a comprehensive overview of the progress achieved in the field of quantum teleportation. The team, which includes Prof. Xiaomin Hu, Prof. Yu Guo, Prof. Biheng Liu, and Prof. Chuanfeng Li from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), CAS, was invited to publish a review paper on quantum teleportation in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Review Physics. The paper was officially released online on May 24.

As one of the most important protocols in the field of quantum information, quantum teleportation has attracted great attention since it was proposed in 1993. Through entanglement distribution and Bell-state measurement, quantum teleportation enables the nonlocal transmission of an unknown quantum state, which has deepened the understanding of quantum entanglement. More importantly, quantum teleportation can effectively overcome the distance limitation of direct transmission of quantum states in quantum communication, as well as realize long-range interactions between different quantum bits in quantum computing.

Performing computation using quantum-mechanical phenomena such as superposition and entanglement.

Asus weds graphics card with an M.2 SSD expander card.

One tip that I always give to family members, friends, and passersby when asked, “How can I make my phone faster?” is straightforward yet typically hidden, and that’s adjusting the animation speed. The method of doing so is quick, simple, and absolutely free. And as a bonus, you’ll feel like the “guy behind the computer” from every action movie. Just follow the steps below.

A few taps and a swipe are all it takes to make your Android phone feel like new again.

Continue reading “Change this Android setting to instantly give your phone twice the speed” »

An optical isolator developed at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) could drastically improve optical systems for many practical applications.

All optical systems —used for telecommunications, microscopy, imaging, quantum photonics, and more—rely on a laser to generate photons and beams of light. To prevent those lasers from damage and instability, these systems also require isolators, components that prevent light from traveling in undesired directions. Isolators also help cut down on signal noise by preventing light from bouncing around unfettered. But conventional isolators have been relatively bulky in size and require more than one type of material to be joined together, creating a roadblock to achieving enhanced performance.

Now, a team of researchers led by electrical engineer Marko Lončar at SEAS has developed a method for building a highly-efficient integrated isolator that’s seamlessly incorporated into an optical chip made of lithium niobate. Their findings are reported in Nature Photonics.

A new design for computer memory that could both greatly improve performance and reduce the energy demands of internet and communications technologies, which are predicted to consume nearly a third of global electricity within the next ten years.

“A typical USB stick based on continuous range would be able to hold between ten and 100 times more information, for example,” said Hellenbrand.

Scientists have made an important step toward developing computers advanced enough to simulate complex natural phenomena at the quantum level. While these types of simulations are too cumbersome or outright impossible for classical computers to handle, photonics-based quantum computing systems could provide a solution.

A team of researchers from the University of Rochester’s Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences developed a new chip-scale optical quantum simulation system that could help make such a system feasible. The team, led by Qiang Lin, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and optics, published their findings in Nature Photonics.

Lin’s team ran the simulations in a synthetic space that mimics the physical world by controlling the frequency, or color, of quantum entangled photons as time elapses. This approach differs from the traditional photonics-based computing methods in which the paths of photons are controlled, and also drastically reduces the physical footprint and resource requirements.

The brain comprises billions of interconnected neurons that transmit and process information and allow it to act as a highly sophisticated information processing system. To make it as efficient as possible, the brain develops multiple modules tasked with different functions, like perception and body control. Within a single area, neurons form multiple clusters and function as modules—an important trait that has remained essentially unchanged throughout evolution.

Still, many unanswered questions remain regarding how the specific structure of the brain’s network, such as the modular structure, works together with the physical and chemical properties of neurons to process information.

Reservoir computing is a computational model inspired by the brain’s powers, where the reservoir comprises a large number of interconnected nodes that transform input signals into a more complex representation.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered a new distinct form of silicon called Q-silicon which, among other interesting properties, is ferromagnetic at room temperature. The findings could lead to advances in quantum computing, including the creation of a spin qubit quantum computer that is based on controlling the spin of an electron.

“The discovery of Q-silicon having robust room temperature ferromagnetism will open a new frontier in atomic-scale, spin-based devices and functional integration with nanoelectronics,” said Jay Narayan, the John C. Fan Family Distinguished Chair in Materials Science and corresponding author of a paper describing the work published in Materials Research Letters.

Ferromagnetism in materials outside of transition metals and rare earths has excited scientists worldwide for a long time. This is because spin-polarized electrons can be used to process and store information with atomic resolution. However, materials with even numbers of electrons, such as carbon and silicon, without unpaired spins were not considered seriously in terms of bulk ferromagnetism. The dangling bonds in bulk carbon and silicon materials usually reconstruct and eliminate sources of unpaired electrons.