Before the century is out, advances in nanotechnology, nanomedicine, AI, and computation will result in the development of a “Human Brain/Cloud Interface” (B/CI), that connects neurons and synapses in the brain to vast cloud-computing networks in real time.
That’s the prediction of a large international team of neurosurgeons, roboticists, and nanotechnologists, writing in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience.
A Human Brain/Cloud Interface, sometimes dubbed the “internet of thoughts”, theoretically links brains and cloud-based data storage through the intercession of nanobots positioned at strategically useful neuronal junctions.
Scientists are edging closer to making a super-secure, super-fast quantum internet possible: they’ve now been able to ‘teleport’ high-fidelity quantum information over a total distance of 44 kilometres (27 miles).
Both data fidelity and transfer distance are crucial when it comes to building a real, working quantum internet, and making progress in either of these areas is cause for celebration for those building our next-generation communications network.
In this case the team achieved a greater than 90 percent fidelity (data accuracy) level with its quantum information, as well as sending it across extensive fibre optic networks similar to those that form the backbone of our existing internet.
While many institutions are developing quantum computers, making a quantum internet requires a way to transfer the information between computers. This is accomplished by a phenomenon called quantum teleportation, in which two atoms separated by large distances are made to act as if they are identical.
Don Lincoln writes about recent research that has brought us closer to actualizing the goal of a quantum internet, giving us both hope and fear about what it could mean for the future.
Between Tesla, SpaceX (Starship & Starlink), 5G, mRNA vaccines and more, 2020 has been an eventful year full of breakthroughs all set to make our lives better, and ushering in a sci-fi future quicker than ever…so I brought them all together in one video to celebrate the great people working tirelessly to make our future better.
If you want a feel good boost, why not drop by and spend a few mins revelling in the positive stories of 2020.
Have an awesome New Year!!
In Looking Back At 2020 I want to review the year to show that for all the bad, there was still some amazing good and positive stories that refused to take a back seat.
Here I will look at Tesla and their battery technology breakthroughs, their full self driving (Level 5 autonomy) breakthroughs, the Starship by SpaceX and also their starlink technology, the roll out of 5G, the amazing mRNA vaccine and all the others, developed in with amazing speed, and fully tested to get us vaccinating already, and the breakthroughs in homeworking that show it can be done, a boon for those with mobility challenges and other commitments that mean all day, every day at a specific office location is not the only option. What are your highlights? Here’s to an amazing 2021.
And why not have a look at the amazing technology that will change this decade in ways most cannot even imagine yet…exciting time to be alive.
A viable quantum internet—a network in which information stored in qubits is shared over long distances through entanglement—would transform the fields of data storage, precision sensing and computing, ushering in a new era of communication.
This month, scientists at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory—a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory affiliated with the University of Chicago—along with partners at five institutions took a significant step in the direction of realizing a quantum internet.
In a paper published in PRX Quantum, the team presents for the first time a demonstration of a sustained, long-distance teleportation of qubits made of photons (particles of light) with fidelity greater than 90%.
For those of us who don’t think that even our bowel movements will soon be inventoried, tracked and timestamped during every moment of existence, here is a just published white paper from the Rand Corporation, an influential think tank created in 1948 to offer research and analysis to the US military, which begs to differ.
The November 2020 whilte paper, published under the title “The Internet of Bodies,” focuses on the advantages and disadvantages, security and privacy risks, plus the ethical implications of what it calls a growing “Internet of Bodies (IoB).”
IoB tools are internet-connected “smart” devices increasingly available in the marketplace which promise to track and upload to the internet measurements related to individual heartbeat, blood pressure and other bodily functions in real time for purposes of health, exercise, security or other reasons.
The scientists put hundreds of participants through memory and cognitive tasks as well as brain scans, according to the research, published last month in the journal World Psychiatry.
Joseph Firth, the Western Sydney University scientist who led the project, described in a press release how the internet’s design is changing both the structure and abilities of the human brain.
The “limitless stream of prompts and notifications from the Internet encourages us towards constantly holding a divided attention,” said Firth, “which then in turn may decrease our capacity for maintaining concentration on a single task.”
As the number of devices connected to the internet continues to increase, so does the amount of redundant data transfer between different sensory terminals and computing units. Computing approaches that intervene in the vicinity of or inside sensory networks could help to process this growing amount of data more efficiently, decreasing power consumption and potentially reducing the transfer of redundant data between sensing and processing units.
Researchers at Hong Kong Polytechnic University have recently carried out a study outlining the concept of near-sensor and in-sensor computing. These are two computing approaches that enable the partial transfer of computation tasks to sensory terminals, which could reduce power consumption and increase the performance of algorithms.
“The number of sensory nodes on the Internet of Things continues to increase rapidly,” Yang Chai, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. “By 2032, the number of sensors will be up to 45 trillion, and the generated information from sensory nodes is equivalent to 1020 bit/second. It is thus becoming necessary to shift part of the computation tasks from cloud computing centers to edge devices in order to reduce energy consumption and time delay, saving communication bandwidth and enhancing data security and privacy.”
“Power is essential to restoring wireless and wireline communications, and we are working with law enforcement to get access to our equipment and make needed repair,” the statement said. “There are serious logistical challenges to working in a disaster area and we will make measurable progress in the hours and days ahead.
We’re grateful for the work of law enforcement as they investigate this event while enabling us to restore service for our customers.
