First Electronic Quantum Processor Created

ScienceDaily is reporting that the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor has been created by a team led by Yale University researchers. "Working with a group of theoretical physicists led by Steven Girvin, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics & Applied Physics, the team manufactured two artificial atoms, or qubits ('quantum bits'). While each qubit is actually made up of a billion aluminum atoms, it acts like a single atom that can occupy two different energy states. These states are akin to the '1' and '0' or 'on' and 'off' states of regular bits employed by conventional computers. Because of the counterintuitive laws of quantum mechanics, however, scientists can effectively place qubits in a 'superposition' of multiple states at the same time, allowing for greater information storage and processing power."

Comments

Beowulf Cluster

[Pepebuho]

How far till we have a Beowulf Cluster of Quantum Processors?

Real test

[DoofusOfDeath]

I don't yet know what kind of porn this enables. I just know that I want it.

Re:Article is incorrect.

[causality]

I am not trying to split hairs. This is actually a rather important point: they did not manufacture "two artificial atoms, or qubits". They manufactured two clusters of atoms that acted as qubits.

If the quality of journalism we see for politics or for useless celebrity trivia became just like the quality of journalism we see for technical matters, there would be significant backlashes against it. Joe Sixpack might not care about the distinction between abstract qubits and their physical implementation, but by God they better not misreport how many times $POP_SINGER has been divorced!

Though I'm not so sure that blatantly inaccurate (or misleading) statements are worse than the way more mainstream news items are handled. For the mainstream items, they are very careful about which stories become "big news that everyone knows" and which don't, or they selectively omit facts which don't suit their agenda or that they otherwise find to be inconvenient. They do that while being careful that any positive statements that they do choose to make are impeccable.

There's nothing absurd or magical about this. It's not unlike the way Microsoft doesn't make all of their file formats free open standards because they, in a similar fashion, find the idea to be inconvenient and incompatible with their intentions. That doesn't become impossible and unthinkable merely because accurate news is important to you. It just means that it's unwise to be the naive person who takes everything at face value and doesn't question like this:

"Of all the events that happen in the world every day, why promote this thing?"
"If you look carefully at what becomes big news and what doesn't, do you see independent people who stand up for themselves, or do you see victims who need to be rescued from something? Why?"
"Do you see that the news corporations value freedom above all else, or do they call for its removal in the name of safety? Can you pick up any newspaper or turn to any news channel and easily find good representatives of both views? Why or why not?"
"Is the nature of presented debate concerning whether or not it is the role of government to get involved, or does the debate consist merely of two competing proposals for what government should do after it gets involved? Is this a careful consideration of available options before solutions are proposed?"
"Do people like Ron Paul (whether you hate him or love him) get coverage because their ideas are radically different, and so they stand out more? Or do such folks become marginalized because their views are not mainstream? Does this help people to make up their own minds? Does this mean that we have real debate, including dissent, or some mockery of real debate?"
"Do these things, when taken together as an abstract, reflect an agenda? Is that agenda statist in nature? Did it get there by accident?"

The way tech stories are handled can be described as "merely low-quality" or "someone didn't do their homework" ... the way the mainstream items are dealt with is really much worse because it takes far more discernment to see what is (deeply) wrong with it. I remember once hearing this on radio news a few years ago (I believe it was Fox): "This new proposal authorizes warrentless wiretapping, which officials state is necessary in order to protect us from the threat of terrorism and will help us to prosecute the War on Terror. However, some civil liberties groups cite privacy concerns *end of show*." Nice how they didn't bother to explain what those concerns are or what the reasoning behind them might be. To quote Bill Hicks, "you'd think that'd be newsworthy ..."

Re:Article is incorrect.

[causality]

It's difficult to talk about what's wrong with tech news reporting without also talking about what's generally wrong with news as an institution. That's because these kinds of problems don't happen in isolation but rather, they reflect the priorities and motivations of the institution. Sort of like the saying "no man is an island."

I am reminded of a sig I have seen belonging to more than one poster, something like "Slashdot does not have a -1 DisagreeAndWishToCensor, and no, Flamebait, Offtopic, and Troll are not substitutes." Now if you don't like what I said and think that there is absolutely no way that the case could be made that it belongs here, at least *try* to look like you have a legitimate reason to feel that way, please. "Offtopic" is a bit too transparent.