Physicists have discovered a potentially game-changing feature of quantum bit behavior which would allow scientists to simulate complex quantum systems without the need for enormous computing power. …
Tag: computing
Five ways artificial intelligence can help space exploration
Artificial intelligence has been making waves in recent years, enabling us to solve problems faster than traditional computing could ever allow. Recently, for example, Google’s artificial intelligence subsidiary DeepMind developed AlphaFold2, a program which solved the protein-folding problem. This is a problem which has had baffled scientists for 50 years. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-01-ways-artificial-intelligence-space-exploration.html…
Trump Seeks To Curb Foreign Cyber Meddling on Last Day in Office
Outgoing President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at thwarting foreign use of cloud computing products for malicious cyber operations against the United States, the White House said on Tuesday, Trump’s last full day in office. From a report: The order, first reported by Reuters, gives the Commerce Department authority to write rules to bar transactions with foreigners in…
Microsoft Joins $2 Billion Deal With GM To Roll Out Self-Driving Cars
Microsoft is joining GM, Honda and others in a $2 billion investment round in Cruise to help commercialize its self-driving cars. The deal bumps Cruise’s valuation to $30 billion, from $19 billion last year. From a report: The investment is part of a broader commitment by GM and Cruise to use Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing platform across their companies, especially as they…
Amazon Begins Removing QAnon Goods For Sale
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo quotes the Washington Post: Amazon said it will remove merchandise related to QAnon, a discredited conspiracy theory that the FBI has identified as a potential domestic terrorist threat, just a day after the e-commerce giant suspended the pro-Trump social media site Parler from using its cloud computing technology. Amazon is beginning to remove QAnon products from its…
Qualcomm To Acquire NUVIA: A CPU Magnitude Shift
Today, Qualcomm has announced they will be acquiring NUVIA for $1.4 billion — acquiring the start-up company consisting of industry veterans which originally were behind the creation of Apple’s high-performance CPU cores. AnandTech reports: NUVIA was originally founded in February 2019 and coming out of stealth-mode in November of that year. The start-up was founded by industry veterans Gerard Williams III,…
BeagleV is a $150 RISC-V Computer Designed To Run Linux
New submitter shoor writes: Seeed Studios — the makers of the Odyssey mini-PC — have teamed up with well-known SBC vendor BeagleBoard to produce an affordable RISC-V system designed to run Linux. The new BeagleV (pronounced “Beagle Five”) system features a dual-core, 1GHz RISC-V CPU made by StarFive — one of a network of RISC-V startups created by better-known RISC-V vendor…
The Impractical but Indisputable Rise of Retrocomputing
For all the personal technology introduced and popularized in 2020 — upscale fitness bikes, at-home Covid tests, game consoles new and old — the personal computer lands on the list with a bit of a thud. PCs lack the novelty of other gadgets, but they’re practical, essential even, in a year when work, school and social life have come to rely…
Rediscovering RISC-V: Apple M1 Sparks Renewed Interest in Non-x86 Architecture
“With the runaway success of the new ARM-based M1 Macs, non-x86 architectures are getting their closeup,” explains a new article at ZDNet. “RISC-V is getting the most attention from system designers looking to horn-in on Apple’s recipe for high performance. Here’s why…” RISC-V is, like x86 and ARM, an instruction set architecture (ISA). Unlike x86 and ARM, it is a free…
Are Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft ‘Digital Warlords’?
EFF special consultant/blogger/science fiction writer Cory Doctorow warns in Locus magazine about the dangers of what Bruce Schneier calls “feudal security”: Here in the 21st century, we are beset by all manner of digital bandits, from identity thieves, to stalkers, to corporate and government spies, to harassers… To be safe, then, you have to ally yourself with a warlord. Apple, Google,…