Lockheed Martin Harnesses Quantum Technology - NYTimes.com
Arthur van Hoff stashed this
Stashed in: Science!, science, Singularity!, Innovation, Yowsah!
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Interesting, I wonder why Google did not buy it.
I'm guessing that from the article...
Researchers at Google have worked with D-Wave on using quantum computers to recognize cars and landmarks, a critical step in managing self-driving vehicles.
...this is a situation where Google would rather collaborate than own.
That seems to be their mode of operation when researching in a field that is very early.
I put this in my "Singularity" stash because this...
Quantum computing is so much faster than traditional computing because of the unusual properties of particles at the smallest level. Instead of the precision of ones and zeros that have been used to represent data since the earliest days of computers, quantum computing relies on the fact that subatomic particles inhabit a range of states. Different relationships among the particles may coexist, as well. Those probable states can be narrowed to determine an optimal outcome among a near-infinitude of possibilities, which allows certain types of problems to be solved rapidly.
...feels like a step in the Singularity direction to me.
Still, there are plenty of critics:
The company’s scientists have not yet published scientific data showing that the system computes faster than today’s conventional binary computers. While similar subatomic properties are used by plants to turn sunlight into photosynthetic energy in a few million-billionths of a second, critics of D-Wave’s method say it is not quantum computing at all, but a form of standard thermal behavior.
So it's early. This will be an interesting field to watch develop.
7:38 AM Mar 22 2013