In the 2024 SWC Lecture, Blaise Agüera y Arcas, VP and Fellow at Google Research and Google’s CTO of Technology & Society, challenged the notion that the brain is not a computer. He explained how both life and intelligence are inherently computational and may even be selected for in the same way.
Live illustration by Alex Cagan.
From single words to sentence production: shared cortical representations but distinct temporal dynamics.
Adam Morgan, Orrin Devinsky, Werner Doyle, Patricia Dugan, Daniel Friedman, Adeen Flinker.
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To create useful randomness in a quantum computer, you could add more quantum bits, but using quantum chaos does the trick too
A research team led by Waterloo Engineering has developed a faster, cheaper way to create large-scale, three-dimensional (3D) computer models of urban areas, technology that could impact fields including urban planning, architectural design and filmmaking.
Quantum technologies, which leverage quantum mechanical effects to process information, could outperform their classical counterparts in some complex and advanced tasks. The development and real-world deployment of these technologies partly relies on the ability to transfer information between different types of quantum systems effectively.
A long-standing challenge in the field of quantum technology is converting quantum signals carried by microwave photons (i.e., particles of electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range) into optical photons (i.e., visible or near visible light particles). Devices designed to perform this conversion are known as microwave-to-optical transducers.
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology recently developed a new microwave-to-optical transducer based on rare-earth ion-doped crystals. Their on-chip transducer, outlined in a paper published in Nature Physics, was implemented using ytterbium-171 ions doped in a YVO4 crystal.
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have uncovered an unexpected interface layer that may be hindering the performance of superconducting qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers.
Researchers at the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology recently connected their campuses with an experimental quantum communications network using two optical fibers. In a new paper published in Optica Quantum, scientists describe the Rochester Quantum Network (RoQNET), which uses single photons to transmit information about 11 miles along fiber-optic lines at room temperature using optical wavelengths.
Quantum communications networks have the potential to massively improve the security with which information is transmitted, making messages impossible to clone or intercept without detection. Quantum communication works with quantum bits, or qubits, that can be physically created using atoms, superconductors, and even in defects in materials like diamond. However, photons—individual particles of light—are the best type of qubit for long distance quantum communications.
Photons are appealing for quantum communication in part because they could theoretically be transmitted over existing fiber-optic telecommunications lines that already crisscross the globe. In the future, many types of qubits will likely be utilized because qubit sources, like quantum dots or trapped ions, each have their own advantages for specific applications in quantum computing or different types of quantum sensing.
Physicists at University of Miami have created a novel organic molecule that could replace silicon and metal used in computer chip making.
Researchers demonstrated for the first time that magnets can be used to perform quantum computing operations.
Researchers have developed a new protocol for benchmarking quantum gates, a critical step toward realizing the full potential of quantum computing and potentially accelerating progress toward fault-tolerant quantum computers.
The new protocol, called deterministic benchmarking (DB), provides a more detailed and efficient method for identifying specific types of quantum noise and errors compared to widely used existing techniques.
The work is published in the journal Chemical Reviews.
