A local ABC story on #transhumanism:
NORFOLK, Va. (WVEC) — From the minute we wake up until we go to sleep, we’re constantly surrounded by technology.
Computers, cell phones, iPads, they’ve become ingrained in our everyday lives.
“There are all sorts of technological advances that conceivable could make the world much better for human beings,” said Mark Waser, an artificial intelligence expert.
He believes with the help of technology, life can be even better for all humans.
Google unveiled software aimed at making it easier for scientists to use the quantum computers in a move designed to give a boost to the nascent industry.
The software, which is open-source and free to use, could be used by chemists and material scientists to adapt algorithms and equations to run on quantum computers. It comes at a time when Google, IBM, Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp. and D-Wave Systems Inc. are all pushing to create quantum computers that can be used for commercial applications.
Neat!
Drawing in air, touchless control of virtual objects, and a modular mobile phone with snap-in sections (for lending to friends, family members, or even strangers) are among the innovative user-interface concepts to be introduced at the 30th ACM User Interface Software and Technology Symposium (UIST 2017) on October 22–25 in Quebec City, Canada.
Here are three concepts to be presented, developed by researchers at Dartmouth College’s human computer interface lab.
D-Wave system shows quantum computers can learn to detect particle signatures in mountains of data, but doesn’t outpace conventional methods — yet.
Researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have used liquid metal to create two-dimensional materials no thicker than a few atoms that have never before been seen in nature.
The incredible breakthrough will not only revolutionise the way we do chemistry but could be applied to enhance data storage and make faster electronics. The “once-in-a-decade” discovery has been published in Science.
The researchers dissolve metals in liquid metal to create very thin oxide layers, which previously did not exist as layered structures and which are easily peeled away.
Sending satellites into space is going to continue to get cheaper since SpaceX proved it could reliably launch refurbished rockets. This is going to open up space exploration to more entities allowing for the continued democratization of space. Other technological advances could make a global space centered sharing economy a real possibility.
The rise of the internet and the ubiquity of mobile computing devices have changed everything from travel and shopping to politics – think Uber, Amazon, and Twitter.
Intel’s quantum computing efforts have yielded a new 17-qubit chip, which the company has just delivered to its partner in that field, QuTech in the Netherlands. It’s not a major advance in the actual computing power or applications — those are still in very early days — but it’s a step toward production systems that can be ordered and delivered to spec rather than experimental ones that live in a physics lab somewhere.
Intel’s celebration of this particular chip is a bit arbitrary; 17 isn’t some magic number in the quantum world, nor does this chip do any special tricks other quantum computer systems can’t. Intel is just happy that its history and undeniable expertise in designing and fabricating chips and architectures is paying off in a new phase of computing.
I chatted with Intel’s director of quantum hardware, Jim Clarke, about the new system.
