Lifeboat Foundation

Quantum computing will transform our computing capabilities.

Intel partners with Microsoft, Dell, HP, and Lenovo.

Intel has partnered with four major PC makers to bring 5G technology to laptops by the end of next year.

The chip giant is working with Microsoft, HP, Dell, and Lenovo to bring 5G connectivity to PCs with Intel’s XMM 8000 series modems.

Continue reading “Laptops with 5G connectivity coming next year” »

Engineers have created a DNA-based chemical oscillator, opening the door to molecular computing.

• By Rachel Nuwer on February 21, 2018

How do IBM scientists keep qubits colder than outer space?

IBM quantum physicists Dr. Stefan Filipp and Dr. Andreas Fuhrer (pictured) will be discussing quantum computing live from the IBM Zurich Research Lab, and will demonstrate how they keep qubits so cold, explain why, and take your questions.

Join us on Friday, Feb. 23 at 16:00 Paris time / 10:00 am EST.

Continue reading “IBM Research Photo” »

Oganesson (Og) is the heaviest chemical element in the periodic table, but its properties have proved difficult to measure since it was first synthesised in 2002.

Now an advanced computer simulation has filled in some of the gaps, and it turns out the element is even weirder than many expected.

At the atomic level, oganesson behaves remarkably differently to lighter elements in several key ways – and that could provide some fundamental insights into the basics of how these superheavy elements work.

Continue reading “We Just Measured The World’s Heaviest Atom, And It’s Even Weirder Than Expected” »

Computing error lets people grab Bitcoin tokens for $0 on Japan’s Zaif exchange.

Although mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones let us communicate, work and access information wirelessly, their batteries must still be charged by plugging them in to an outlet. But engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time developed a method to safely charge a smartphone wirelessly using a laser.

As the team reports in a paper published online in December in the Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable & Ubiquitous Technologies, a narrow, invisible beam from a laser emitter can deliver charge to a smartphone sitting across a room — and can potentially charge a smartphone as quickly as a standard USB cable. To accomplish this, the team mounted a thin power cell to the back of a smartphone, which charges the smartphone using power from the laser. In addition, the team custom-designed safety features — including a metal, flat-plate heatsink on the smartphone to dissipate excess heat from the laser, as well as a reflector-based mechanism to shut off the laser if a person tries to move in the charging beam’s path.

“Safety was our focus in designing this system,” said co-author Shyam Gollakota, an associate professor in the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. “We have designed, constructed and tested this laser-based charging system with a rapid-response safety mechanism, which ensures that the laser emitter will terminate the charging beam before a person comes into the path of the laser.”

Continue reading “Using a laser to wirelessly charge a smartphone safely across a room” »

MIT and Harvard physicists have created a new form of light that could enable quantum computing with photons.

Networks that harness entanglement and teleportation could enable leaps in security, computing and science.

• By Davide Castelvecchi, Nature magazine on February 16, 2018