Thanks to a sleek new computer chip developed by IBM, we are one step closer to making computers work like the brain.
The neuromorphic chip is made from a phase-change material commonly found in rewritable optical discs (confused? more on this later). Because of this secret sauce, the chip’s components behave strikingly similar to biological neurons: they can scale down to nanometer size and perform complicated computations rapidly with little energy.
Science fiction is inching closer to reality with the development of revolutionary self-propelling liquid metals—a critical step towards future elastic electronics.
While building a shape-shifting liquid metal T-1000 Terminator may still be far on the horizon, the pioneering work by researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, is setting the foundation for moving beyond solid state electronics towards flexible and dynamically reconfigurable soft circuit systems.
Modern electronic technologies like smart phones and computers are mainly based on circuits that use solid state components, with fixed metallic tracks and semiconducting devices.
I love investing. Every investor who strives to understand their craft to the fullest, ends up at the undeniable conclusion that time is the most valuable asset, bar none. Without it, nothing else of value can exist, it’s the magic ingredient. We can leave value behind for our loved ones, but on an individual level, this intangible asset is a requirement to value and enjoyment as a life form.
Technological innovation and growth can be compared to a snowball rolling down a mountainside, growing faster with each rotation, while speeding up simultaneously. Moore’s Law has held for decades, some say we will hit a wall in silicon transistor shrinking, but the advent of graphene has recently given new light on how this can continue on. New materials, will keep the acceleration of processing power and shrinking of those technologies, intact.
Posted in biotech/medical, computing
Like this article; there is 2 more pieces missing from the roadmap for 2010 & beyond and that is Biocomputing & Singularity. Biocomputing will provide the financial industry (banks, trading firms, accounting & audit firms, bond insurers, etc.) the ability to expand information/ data storage and transmission capacities like we have never see before just look at what Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc. have done with DNA storage. And, the much loved Singularity enables boosting of knowledge and insights as well as more mobility and access to information as they need it. BTW — Biometrics is NOT the same as Biocomputing; biocomputing goes well beyond security/ identity management.
The influential non-profit rates these technologies alongside the PC, the internet, and smartphones in terms of their potential to transform financial…
Hmmm.
Testimonials from prominent physics researchers from institutions such as Cambridge University, Princeton University, and the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich claim that quantum mechanics predicts some version of “life after death.”
They assert that a person may possess a body-soul duality that is an extension of the wave-particle duality of subatomic particles.
Wave-particle duality, a fundamental concept of quantum mechanics, proposes that elementary particles, such as photons and electrons, possess the properties of both particles and waves. These physicists claim that they can possibly extend this theory to the soul-body dichotomy. If there is a quantum code for all things, living and dead, then there is an existence after death (speaking in purely physical terms). Dr. Hans-Peter Dürr, former head of the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich, posits that, just as a particle “writes” all of its information on its wave function, the brain is the tangible “floppy disk” on which we save our data, and this data is then “uploaded” into the spiritual quantum field. Continuing with this analogy, when we die the body, or the physical disk, is gone, but our consciousness, or the data on the computer, lives on.
A group of Korean materials scientists at the National University of Seoul, led by Chong-Chan Kim, had just developed an “ionic”, translucent, jelly-like computer touchpad that can be worn on the wrist and used just like a regular smartphone screen to scroll, click, drag, swipe, play video games and even type words.
If you think quantum computing sounds like something out of science fiction, you’re not alone. It’s still more theory than practice, but it might be able to answer questions that are unsolvable by current computers. Earlier this year, IBM made a small quantum computer available via the cloud.
Quantum Mechanics and the Weirdness of Particles
To understand quantum computers, you must first know a little bit about quantum mechanics. In the briefest possible description, quantum mechanics is the branch of physics that models how particles behave at the smallest scales.
China has made a breakthrough in the research of quantum computing. The quantum laboratory of the University of Science and Technology of China recently announced its success in developing a semiconductor quantum chip.
According to a CNTV report on Aug. 11, the quantum chip is equivalent to the “brain” of future quantum computers; it enables quantum operations and information processing. Besides computing, technologies for quantum storage and control are also essential to the future of this technology. The “sandwich-type” solid-state quantum memory can be operational at a low temperature with magnetic auxiliary equipment.
Zhou Zongquan, a researcher at the Key Laboratory of Quantum Information under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), said that the direction of future development is to prolong the life of quantum memory.
