Today's powerful computers that run on microscopic transistor chips won't begin to match the speed of a totally different kind of computer which may be available 50 years from now, thanks to researchers at The University of Arizona in Tucson. We all know that information technology has been driving our economic engine over the past decade or two. But for that to continue, a new paradigm for information processing will be needed by the middle of the next century. It looks like quantum information may be a candidate, there are no undamental barriers in the way. There is no basic fundamental law that says this cannot be done. Still, it's going to be very hard.
Quantum computing has potential to shatter the entire concept of binary computing, the use of zero's and one's, "on" and "off," to represent information digitally. Researchers at the University of New Mexico propose a new concept for how individual atoms might be controlled at the very quantum level for computers for the future. The researchers at the Optical Sciences Center are now about to begin experiments to test their theory that neutral or chargeless atoms, trapped like individual eggs in an egg carton by a lattice created by interfering laser beams and super cooled to the point of zero motion, will work for quantum computing.
Researchers have succeeded in cooling light trapped atoms to the zero point of motion, a pure vibrational state that is the crucial initialisation step to using atoms as quantum information bits. The pure quantum state would be the logical zero for a quantum mechanical computer. The scientists' success at cooling atoms was no small achievement. Atoms in this super cooled state are colder than liquid helium by roughly the same factor that liquid helium is colder than the center of the sun.
The researchers have reported that their scheme for stacking atom filled optical lattices so the neutral atoms will sufficiently interact to make quantum logic operations possible. If the scheme works, the big advantage is that atoms can be easily accessible for laser manipulation but remain isolated from the surrounding environment. Random forces from the outside world that act on the tiny quantum bits is perhaps the greatest problem confronting researchers trying to build a real quantum computer.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Nano Computers
Here's a date for your diary November 1st, 2011. According to a group of researchers calling themselves the Nanocomputer Dream Team, that's the day they'll unveil a revolutionary kind of computer, the most powerful ever seen. Their nanocomputer will be made out of atoms. First suggested by Richard Feynman in 1959, the idea of nanotechnology, constructing at the atomic level, is now a major research topic worldwide. Theoreticians have already come up with designs for simple mechanical structures like bearings, hinges, gears and pumps, each made from a few collections of atoms. These currently exist only as computer simulations, and the race is on to fabricate the designs and prove that they can work.
Moving individual atoms around at will sounds like fantasy, but it's already been demonstrated in the lab. In 1989, scientists at IBM used an electron microscope to shuffle 35 xenon atoms into the shape of their company's logo. Since then a team at IBM's Zurich labs has achieved the incredible feat of creating a working abacus on the atomic scale.
Each bead is a single molecule of buckminsterfullerene (a buckyball), comprising 60 atoms of carbon linked into a football shape. The beads slide up and down a copper plate, nudged by the tip of an electron microscope. The Nanocomputer Dream Team wants to use these techniques to build an atomic computer. Such a computer, they say can then be used to control simple molecular construction machines, which can then build more complex molecular devices, ultimately giving complete control of the molecular world.
The driving force behind the Dream Team is Bill Spence, publisher of Nanotechnology magazine. Spence is convinced that the technology can be made to work, and has enlisted the help of over 300 enthusiasts with diverse backgrounds - engineers, physicists, chemists, programmers and artificial intelligence researchers. The whole team has never met, and probably never will. They communicate by email and pool their ideas on the Web. There's only one problem. Nobody is quite sure how to build a digital nanocomputer.
The most promising idea is rod logic, invented by nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler, now chairman of the leading nano think tank The Foresight Institute. Rod logic uses stiff rods made from short chains of carbon atoms. Around each rod sits a knob made of a ring of atoms. The rods are fitted into an interlocking lattice, where each rod can slide between two positions, and be reset by a spring made of another few atoms. Drexler has shown how to use such an arrangement to achieve the effect of a conventional electronic transistor, where the flow of current in one wire is switched on and off by current in a different wire. Once you have transistors, you can build a NAND gate. From NAND gates you can construct every other logic element a computer needs.
Moving individual atoms around at will sounds like fantasy, but it's already been demonstrated in the lab. In 1989, scientists at IBM used an electron microscope to shuffle 35 xenon atoms into the shape of their company's logo. Since then a team at IBM's Zurich labs has achieved the incredible feat of creating a working abacus on the atomic scale.
Each bead is a single molecule of buckminsterfullerene (a buckyball), comprising 60 atoms of carbon linked into a football shape. The beads slide up and down a copper plate, nudged by the tip of an electron microscope. The Nanocomputer Dream Team wants to use these techniques to build an atomic computer. Such a computer, they say can then be used to control simple molecular construction machines, which can then build more complex molecular devices, ultimately giving complete control of the molecular world.
The driving force behind the Dream Team is Bill Spence, publisher of Nanotechnology magazine. Spence is convinced that the technology can be made to work, and has enlisted the help of over 300 enthusiasts with diverse backgrounds - engineers, physicists, chemists, programmers and artificial intelligence researchers. The whole team has never met, and probably never will. They communicate by email and pool their ideas on the Web. There's only one problem. Nobody is quite sure how to build a digital nanocomputer.
The most promising idea is rod logic, invented by nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler, now chairman of the leading nano think tank The Foresight Institute. Rod logic uses stiff rods made from short chains of carbon atoms. Around each rod sits a knob made of a ring of atoms. The rods are fitted into an interlocking lattice, where each rod can slide between two positions, and be reset by a spring made of another few atoms. Drexler has shown how to use such an arrangement to achieve the effect of a conventional electronic transistor, where the flow of current in one wire is switched on and off by current in a different wire. Once you have transistors, you can build a NAND gate. From NAND gates you can construct every other logic element a computer needs.
Optical Computer
In most modern computers, electrons travel between transistor switches on metal wires or traces to gather, process and store information. The optical computers of the future will instead use photons traveling on optical fibers or thin films to perform these functions. But entirely optical computer systems are still far into the future. Right now scientists are focusing on developing hybrids by combining electronics with photonics. Electro-optic hybrids were first made possible around 1978, when researchers realized that photons could respond to electrons through certain media such as lithium niobate (LiNbO3). To make the thin polymer films for electro-optic applications, NASA scientists dissolve a monomer (the building block of a polymer) in an organic solvent. This solution is then put into a growth cell with a quartz window. An ultraviolet lamp shining through this window creates a chemical reaction, causing a thin polymer film to deposit on the quartz.
An ultraviolet lamp causes the entire quartz surface to become coated, but shining a laser through the quartz can cause the polymer to deposit in specific patterns. Because a laser is a thin beam of focused light, it can be used to draw exact lines. A laser beam's focus can be as small as a micron-sized spot (1 micron is 1-millionth of a meter, or 1/25,000 of an inch), so scientists can deposit the organic materials on the quartz in very sophisticated patterns. By painting with light, scientists can create optical circuits that may one day replace the electronics currently used in computers.
NASA scientists are making these organic thin films on the Space Shuttle to overcome problems caused by convection. Convection is a circular motion in air or in a liquid created from uneven heating. On Earth's surface, when a gas or liquid is heated it expands, becoming lighter and less dense. This lighter material rises, mixing with cooler and denser material from above. Such turbulence occurs in the world's weather patterns or even in a pot of water boiling on the stove.
Convection creates difficulties when trying to create a uniform film. A UV lamp or laser light will raise the temperature of the film solution, causing the hotter solution to rise. Aggregates of solid polymers often form in the solution, and convective flows that develop in the solution can carry these aggregates to the surface of the quartz. Because aggregates on optical films can cause light to scatter, the goal is to make the films as smooth and uniform as possible.
An ultraviolet lamp causes the entire quartz surface to become coated, but shining a laser through the quartz can cause the polymer to deposit in specific patterns. Because a laser is a thin beam of focused light, it can be used to draw exact lines. A laser beam's focus can be as small as a micron-sized spot (1 micron is 1-millionth of a meter, or 1/25,000 of an inch), so scientists can deposit the organic materials on the quartz in very sophisticated patterns. By painting with light, scientists can create optical circuits that may one day replace the electronics currently used in computers.
NASA scientists are making these organic thin films on the Space Shuttle to overcome problems caused by convection. Convection is a circular motion in air or in a liquid created from uneven heating. On Earth's surface, when a gas or liquid is heated it expands, becoming lighter and less dense. This lighter material rises, mixing with cooler and denser material from above. Such turbulence occurs in the world's weather patterns or even in a pot of water boiling on the stove.
Convection creates difficulties when trying to create a uniform film. A UV lamp or laser light will raise the temperature of the film solution, causing the hotter solution to rise. Aggregates of solid polymers often form in the solution, and convective flows that develop in the solution can carry these aggregates to the surface of the quartz. Because aggregates on optical films can cause light to scatter, the goal is to make the films as smooth and uniform as possible.
Holographic storage technologies
The theory of holography was developed by Dennis Gabor, a Hungarian physicist, in the year 1947. His theory was originally intended to increase the resolving power of electron microscopes. Gabor proved his theory not with an electron beam, but with a light beam. The result was the first hologram ever made. The early holograms were legible but plagued with many imperfections because Gabor did not have the correct light to make
crisp clear holograms as we can today . Gabor needed laser Light. In the 1960s two engineers from the University of Michigan: Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks, developed a new device which produced a three dimensional image of an object. Building on the discoveries of Gabor, they produced the diffuse light hologram. Today, we can see holograms, or 3D images, on credit cards, magazine covers and in art galleries. Yet this unique method of capturing information with lasers has many more applications in the industrial world and is on the verge of revolutionizing data storage technology as we know it.
A project at Lucent Technologies Bell Laboratories could result in the first commercially viable holographic storage system. Leveraging advances across a number of technologies from micromirror arrays to new non linear polymer recording media, the team hopes to spin the project off into a startup. This technology not only offers very high storage densities, it could access that data at very high rates, due to the fact that holographic methods read an entire page of data in one operation. While conventional optical storage techniques read and write data by altering an optical medium on a per bit basis, holographic storage records an entire interference pattern in a single operation. This technique makes
Unique demands on both the light source and the recording medium. While a conventional optical disk system can get by with a relatively low power laser diode and a single detector, holographic techniques require high quality laser sources and detector arrays. However, these types of components have been getting cheaper. For example, CMOS pixel sensors offer the potential for the low cost detection of data arrays, while digital micromirrors can be used for data input from electronic systems. The biggest challenge has been devising a suitable optical medium for storing the interference patterns. The team turned to none
Linear polymers in its search for that key component. What is needed is a medium that can support the overlap of megabyte data pages, each with a high enough diffraction efficiency to enable high transfer rates. These two demands sound reasonably simple, but it really leads to a very long list of pretty stringent criteria for what a material has to do. The researchers have found what they believe is a suitable candidate, an acrylic polymer compound that polymerises in response to light. In addition to having the required optical performance properties, the new material, being a polymer, is easy to form into thick films. Film thickness directly relates to storage capacity and inorganic nonlinear materials, which are crystalline, are difficult to build in thick films. The researchers have built a prototype system using off the shelf components such as camera lenses and digital micromirrors from Texas Instruments.
crisp clear holograms as we can today . Gabor needed laser Light. In the 1960s two engineers from the University of Michigan: Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks, developed a new device which produced a three dimensional image of an object. Building on the discoveries of Gabor, they produced the diffuse light hologram. Today, we can see holograms, or 3D images, on credit cards, magazine covers and in art galleries. Yet this unique method of capturing information with lasers has many more applications in the industrial world and is on the verge of revolutionizing data storage technology as we know it.
A project at Lucent Technologies Bell Laboratories could result in the first commercially viable holographic storage system. Leveraging advances across a number of technologies from micromirror arrays to new non linear polymer recording media, the team hopes to spin the project off into a startup. This technology not only offers very high storage densities, it could access that data at very high rates, due to the fact that holographic methods read an entire page of data in one operation. While conventional optical storage techniques read and write data by altering an optical medium on a per bit basis, holographic storage records an entire interference pattern in a single operation. This technique makes
Unique demands on both the light source and the recording medium. While a conventional optical disk system can get by with a relatively low power laser diode and a single detector, holographic techniques require high quality laser sources and detector arrays. However, these types of components have been getting cheaper. For example, CMOS pixel sensors offer the potential for the low cost detection of data arrays, while digital micromirrors can be used for data input from electronic systems. The biggest challenge has been devising a suitable optical medium for storing the interference patterns. The team turned to none
Linear polymers in its search for that key component. What is needed is a medium that can support the overlap of megabyte data pages, each with a high enough diffraction efficiency to enable high transfer rates. These two demands sound reasonably simple, but it really leads to a very long list of pretty stringent criteria for what a material has to do. The researchers have found what they believe is a suitable candidate, an acrylic polymer compound that polymerises in response to light. In addition to having the required optical performance properties, the new material, being a polymer, is easy to form into thick films. Film thickness directly relates to storage capacity and inorganic nonlinear materials, which are crystalline, are difficult to build in thick films. The researchers have built a prototype system using off the shelf components such as camera lenses and digital micromirrors from Texas Instruments.
Iqua 603 SUN – Bluetooth Wireless Headset
This solar-powered Wireless Bluetooth headset provides superb battery life, good audio quality, and a warm-and-fuzzy feeling by helping the environment. Accustomed to reaching for your Wireless Bluetooth headset only to find its battery is drained? Take a good look at the Iqua 603 Sun Wireless Bluetooth headset, which sports a solar panel that provides almost unlimited power. Combine that with strong audio quality and you’ve got a strong hands-free contender.
The 603 Sun might not be the prettiest or most compact headset compared to other stylish options from Plantronics and Jabra, but it is just the right size to keep in a bag or coat pocket. Measuring 1.9 x 1 x 0.5 inches and weighing about a half an ounce, the black unit looks chunky, but is light enough to wear all day on your head, or around your neck with the included lanyard. The charcoal face of the headset sports a solar panel, which is also a multifunction button.
A rubber earpiece on the spine of the device fits into your right or left ear, and the top of the device holds a volume control, which is also used to redial the last number and initiate voice commands. It stayed firmly in our ear, but we appreciated the included flexible loop attachment that can fit in either ear; it made the Bluetooth Stereo headset feel more secure while walking around. A mini-USB port is located on the right side of the device for charging--on rainy days, of course.
No one can match this headset’s stellar solar panel, which can charge the earpiece in any available light--indoors or outdoors--to extend the talk and standby time of the headset. Out of the box, you have to charge the 603 Sun Bluetooth Stereo headset with the AC adapter for two hours. After two weeks of being powered on and with frequent use (30 minutes of talking per day), we never had to reach for the AC charger. Exposing the headset to indoor office light and minimal daylight was enough to keep the Stereo headset on standby while intermittently taking calls. Not having to worry about turning off the Bluetooth Stereo headset at night was joyous.
The 603 Sun might not be the prettiest or most compact headset compared to other stylish options from Plantronics and Jabra, but it is just the right size to keep in a bag or coat pocket. Measuring 1.9 x 1 x 0.5 inches and weighing about a half an ounce, the black unit looks chunky, but is light enough to wear all day on your head, or around your neck with the included lanyard. The charcoal face of the headset sports a solar panel, which is also a multifunction button.
A rubber earpiece on the spine of the device fits into your right or left ear, and the top of the device holds a volume control, which is also used to redial the last number and initiate voice commands. It stayed firmly in our ear, but we appreciated the included flexible loop attachment that can fit in either ear; it made the Bluetooth Stereo headset feel more secure while walking around. A mini-USB port is located on the right side of the device for charging--on rainy days, of course.
No one can match this headset’s stellar solar panel, which can charge the earpiece in any available light--indoors or outdoors--to extend the talk and standby time of the headset. Out of the box, you have to charge the 603 Sun Bluetooth Stereo headset with the AC adapter for two hours. After two weeks of being powered on and with frequent use (30 minutes of talking per day), we never had to reach for the AC charger. Exposing the headset to indoor office light and minimal daylight was enough to keep the Stereo headset on standby while intermittently taking calls. Not having to worry about turning off the Bluetooth Stereo headset at night was joyous.
Solid State Storage Technologies
OmniDimensional Systems plans to create a 2 Gigabyte solid state memory by integrating thin film transistors and diodes onto a substrate that is formed from the flexible foil used to store information optically on CD-ROM. The intent is to substitute thin film electronics for the slow and unreliable mechanical parts used in optical drives, enabling subsystems that promise virtually instantaneous access to very large databases. The company is combining the solid state memory with a special encoding technique that it says can pack three times the normal amount of information into a given space.
The company uses the basic data encoding and compression scheme, called autosophy, in its data communications products. What they've done is marry two mature technologies to fill a need for cheap, large associative memories. Autosophy can do the same thing for rewritable optical memories, by using a secondary grid. CD-ROM and similar rewritable optical media modify the surface of a thin sheet of foil with various aberrations, which are normally sensed by a photodiode's picking up light from a laser diode on the read head.
In the OmniDimensional approach, the read head is replaced with an array of integrated thin film transistors and diodes of the kind used in active matrix liquid crystal displays (LCD). Autosophy encodings simplify the reading electronics by ensuring that only one output row activates at a time. The company believes the associative operation of the memory will enable autosophy theory to expand from the RAM based telecommunications code it is today to become a mainstream solid state memory technology.
Autosophy theory enables graphical data to be compressed but requires the use of associative memories to do real time lookups of dictionary entries. The process is simpler for serial telecommunications, because the bit stream is artificially divided into 8 bit characters (plus start and stop bits), which can be kept in a dynamically maintained library in RAM.
For instance, autosophy as used in telecommunications only transmits a full set of information once. The second time, only the address of the information is transmitted. But with graphical data which is two dimensional and not neatly divided into characters, autosophy needs associative memories to perform real time lookup in a dictionary of pieces of the image.
The company uses the basic data encoding and compression scheme, called autosophy, in its data communications products. What they've done is marry two mature technologies to fill a need for cheap, large associative memories. Autosophy can do the same thing for rewritable optical memories, by using a secondary grid. CD-ROM and similar rewritable optical media modify the surface of a thin sheet of foil with various aberrations, which are normally sensed by a photodiode's picking up light from a laser diode on the read head.
In the OmniDimensional approach, the read head is replaced with an array of integrated thin film transistors and diodes of the kind used in active matrix liquid crystal displays (LCD). Autosophy encodings simplify the reading electronics by ensuring that only one output row activates at a time. The company believes the associative operation of the memory will enable autosophy theory to expand from the RAM based telecommunications code it is today to become a mainstream solid state memory technology.
Autosophy theory enables graphical data to be compressed but requires the use of associative memories to do real time lookups of dictionary entries. The process is simpler for serial telecommunications, because the bit stream is artificially divided into 8 bit characters (plus start and stop bits), which can be kept in a dynamically maintained library in RAM.
For instance, autosophy as used in telecommunications only transmits a full set of information once. The second time, only the address of the information is transmitted. But with graphical data which is two dimensional and not neatly divided into characters, autosophy needs associative memories to perform real time lookup in a dictionary of pieces of the image.
Is Bluetooth devices are safe
According to the latest research it is safer to talk on Bluetooth Headset devices rather than holding your mobile phone to your ear. This is due to the fact that, as the range of the Bluetooth devices is only about 10 metres, the Bluetooth radio wave frequencies are much lower than the current standards. Wireless technologies are developing and diversifying rapidly. For example, WLAN, UWB, ZigBee and Wibree, are now entering several different market-areas, however, it is important to keep in mind that it usually takes time for new technologies to become an industry standard in their respective markets.
For instance, WLAN (a service that is already becoming more and more common in the mobile phone industry) is still not going to replace Bluetooth technology for quite a long time. As a result, though, new technology-based products are quickly being developed and will be offered to customers as soon as possible. It is highly unlikely that somebody could break into a given mobile phone by using a Bluetooth accessories.
The transferring of “mischief programs” from one mobile phone to another, have recently awaken some discussion regarding general security. According to the mobile phone manufacturers, these programs very rare and are not commonly used. Some people also feel that there is the chance that a “mischief program” could forward itself to another mobile phone by using multimedia or Bluetooth messages.
However, these attaches are easy to avoid by using simple common sense as this form of program-transferring usually requires the recipient to first “accept” the contact request from the “infected” Bluetooth Accessories, open the received message and install the program that is in the message—despite the mobile phone’s numerous security warnings. Mobile phone development is heading towards the direction where phones will soon be better prepared for these types of threats.
For instance, WLAN (a service that is already becoming more and more common in the mobile phone industry) is still not going to replace Bluetooth technology for quite a long time. As a result, though, new technology-based products are quickly being developed and will be offered to customers as soon as possible. It is highly unlikely that somebody could break into a given mobile phone by using a Bluetooth accessories.
The transferring of “mischief programs” from one mobile phone to another, have recently awaken some discussion regarding general security. According to the mobile phone manufacturers, these programs very rare and are not commonly used. Some people also feel that there is the chance that a “mischief program” could forward itself to another mobile phone by using multimedia or Bluetooth messages.
However, these attaches are easy to avoid by using simple common sense as this form of program-transferring usually requires the recipient to first “accept” the contact request from the “infected” Bluetooth Accessories, open the received message and install the program that is in the message—despite the mobile phone’s numerous security warnings. Mobile phone development is heading towards the direction where phones will soon be better prepared for these types of threats.
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