computing
A practical method for automatically correcting data-handling errors in quantum computers has been developed and demonstrated by physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Described in the Dec. 2, 2004, issue of the journal Nature, the NIST work is the first demonstration of all the steps of error correction for quantum computers, a futuristic, potentially very powerful form of computing that uses the quantum properties of atoms or other particles as 1s and 0s for processing data. The method was implemented using ions (electrically charged atoms) as quantum bits (qubits). Ions are arguably the leading candidate for use as qubits in a quantum computer.
For the second consecutive year, the ''High Energy Physics'' team of physicists, computer scientists, and network engineers have won the Supercomputing Bandwidth Challenge with a sustained data transfer of 101 gigabits per second (Gbps) between Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. This is more than four times faster than last year's record of 23.2 gigabits per second, which was set by the same team.
The field of biology is undergoing a revolution, transformed by sophisticated technologies from a qualitative, descriptive science to one that's quantitative and predictive. These technologies are producing a wealth of biological data that, once collected, analyzed and interpreted holistically, will form the basis for applications ranging from the development of cancer treatments to the creation of novel bioremediation technologies that will help clean up the worst Superfund sites.
NASA today announced that its newest supercomputer, 'Columbia,' was named one of the world's most powerful production supercomputers by the TOP500 Project at SC2004, the International Conference of High Performance Computing, Networking, and Storage in Pittsburgh. Columbia, which achieved a benchmark rating of 51.9 teraflops on 10,240 processors, is ranked second on the TOP500 List, just behind Blue Gene, IBM's supercomputer at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The revolution was not televised. In the fall of 1999, the Stanford Microarray Database booted up, and a level of computing power was suddenly available to the field of molecular biology that only a few years earlier was inconceivable. On Oct. 19, the database recorded its 50,000th experiment, marking its place at the forefront of an information processing revolution that has yielded groundbreaking insights into the relationships between genes and illness, as well as fundamental biological discoveries.
Using integrated circuit fabrication techniques, a team of researchers has bound a single photon to a superconducting device engineered to behave like a single atom, forming an artificial molecule. It's the first experimental result in a field dubbed Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics. The superconducting devices can be operated as qubits, the basic element of information storage in the field of quantum computing. Researchers also present telltale evidence that their qubit was coupling to a microwave photon, sharing energy in much the same way electrons are shared when two atoms combine to form a molecule. They offered two suggestions for naming the new, combined state: phobit or quton.
By connecting hundreds or even thousands of computers together to work on a single project, computer scientists are more frequently using a technique called grid computing to do previously intractable computations. Grid computing takes advantage of ''down time'' when computers are not using their full processing power to provide quick answers to problems in fields such as genomics, engineering design and financial services. While parallel processing typically involves tying together multiple computers at a single site--all using one piece of software--a computer grid may be much more geographically dispersed, composed of many heterogeneous computers whose availability may change over time.
Quantum computing, which holds the promise of nearly unlimited processing power, secure communications and the ability to decode encrypted conversations by terrorists and others, is a significant step closer to becoming a reality today with new research published by a team of UCLA scientists in the journal Nature. The team succeeded in flipping a single electron spin upside down in an ordinary commercial transistor chip, and detected that the current changes when the electron flips.
University of Idaho's Richard Wells and his microelectronics research team are helping usher in the age of real electronic brains.
UI researchers envision computers one day built from artificial neurons bundled together into networks that can perform tasks onerous to humans, such as dangerous military tactics, automated traffic and emergency dispatching, smart cars that drive themselves and eventually bio-medical applications and prosthetics.
''Our fundamental research on artificial neurons mimics biology and lays the foundation for a complete departure in computing from today's chip design,'' says Wells. Information is carried by trains of electrical pulses and codes superior in performance to traditional analog-digital integrated circuitry.
By carving specks of single crystal silicon from a bulk wafer and casting them onto sheets of plastic, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a route to ultrahigh performance, mechanically flexible thin-film transistors. The process could enable new applications in consumer electronics -- such as inexpensive wall-to-wall displays and intelligent but disposable radio frequency identification tags -- and could even be used in applications that require significant computing power.
Physicists at the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated 'teleportation' by transferring key properties of one atom to another atom without using any physical link, according to results reported in the June 17, 2004, issue of the journal Nature.
Unlike the 'beaming' of actual physical objects and people between distant locations popularized in the Star Trek science fiction series, the term 'teleportation' is how physicists describe a transfer of quantum states between separate atoms. The quantum state of an atom is a description of such things as its energy, motion, magnetic field and other physical properties.
UK plans for Grid computing changed gear this week. The pioneering European DataGrid (EDG) project came to a successful conclusion at the end of March, and on 1 April a new project, known as Enabling Grids for E-Science in Europe (EGEE), begins. The UK is a major player in both projects, providing key staff and developing crucial areas of the technology. While EDG tested the concept of large-scale Grid computing, EGEE aims to create a permanent, reliable Grid infrastructure across Europe.
Researchers in North Carolina have developed a data transfer protocol for the Internet that makes today's high-speed Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connections seem lethargic. The protocol is named BIC-TCP, which stands for Binary Increase Congestion Transmission Control Protocol. In a recent comparative study run by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), BIC consistently topped the rankings in a set of experiments that determined its stability, scalability and fairness in comparison with other protocols. The study tested six other protocols developed by researchers from schools around the world, including the California Institute of Technology and the University College of London. BIC can reportedly achieve speeds roughly 6,000 times that of DSL and 150,000 times that of current modems.
The Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is now home to the United States' fastest operational unclassified supercomputer. The laboratory's 11.8 teraflops industry-standard HP Integrity system came to full operating power this week, marking the next advance in high-performance computing designed to enable new insights in the environmental and molecular sciences, including chemistry, biology, climate and subsurface chemistry.
Evident Technologies, Inc. announced today that it has been issued United States Patent Number 6,571,028 for an all optical switch or optical transistor. The optical transistor is based upon a saturable absorber or switch using the company?s EviDots semiconductor nanocrystal quantum dot technologies. The optical switch has the potential to switch at speeds up to thousands of times faster than current generation optical switching.
For more information on Evident please visit www.evidenttech.com or contact us at info@evidenttech.com or call us 518-273-6266.
