IBM has found a way to combine a new program execution environment, Qiskit, with a balance of “classical” and quantum computing to deliver a 100 times speedup for tasks that depend on iterative circuit execution. Computations that take months now will take mere hours, IBM said. Engadget reports: Qiskit by itself allows more circuits to run at a “much faster” rate,…
Tag: iterative
Biden Orders Sweeping Review of Government Science Integrity Policies
sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: President Joe Biden today created a task force that will conduct a 120-day review of scientific integrity policies across the U.S. government, including documenting instances in which “improper political interference” interfered with research or led to the suppression or distortion of data. The review is part of a lengthy memorandum from Biden on his…
Amazon is Good at So Many Things. Why is it Bad at Games?
In recent years Amazon has become a major force in television and film, so we have seen that the company can succeed in generating popular mass entertainment. Why is the company struggling so badly with games? Discussing the question with people involved with Amazon Games, some common themes emerge. From a report: “We’re bringing a lot of Amazon practices to making…
Samsung: Expect 6G In 2028, Enabling Mobile Holograms and Digital Twins
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: [A]s 5G continues to roll out, 6G research continues, and today top mobile hardware developer Samsung is weighing in with predictions of what’s to come. Surprisingly, the South Korean company is preparing for early 6G to launch two years ahead of the commonly predicted 2030 timeframe, even though both the proposed use cases…
AI Drives Innovators To Build Entirely New Semiconductors
“AI has ushered in a new golden age of semiconductor innovation,” reports Forbes:
For most of the history of computing, the prevailing chip architecture has been the CPU, or central processing unit… But while CPUs’ key advantage is versatility, today’s leading AI techniques demand a very specific — and intensive — set of computations. Deep learning entails the iterative execution of millions…
Google Experimented on Its Own Employees To Get Them To Eat Healthier
This week Medium’s tech blog OneZero published a 4,500-word look at Google’s “methodical, iterative” and massive “living experiment” on its own employees to see if they can nudge them into making healthier choices when they eat:
The campaign isn’t changing just the food itself, but how it’s presented. Google’s tactics include limiting portion sizes for meat and desserts and redesigning its premises…
Made in China 8-Core x86 CPU Released
AmiMoJo writes: Zhaoxin, a fabless chip maker based in Shanghai, has produced a homegrown x86 CPU line that’s apparently ready for the DIY scene. The Zhaoxin KaiXian KX-6000 series of processors were originally shown off in 2018, but since then we had heard little about them. Now it seems that the KX-U6780A will come to market this quarter, as listed on…
Becoming Environmentally Conscious: Meet the edX Sustainability Team
The Sustainability Team, a group of people committed to making the edX workplace more environmentally sustainable, was formed during Hackathon XXII—a quarterly event with the goal of driving innovation and problem solving. The team’s first initiative was measuring edX’s carbon footprint and collecting potential projects to make a positive impact. The group has since grown, and has taken on a wider…
Purism Finally Starts Shipping Its Privacy-Focused ‘Librem 5’ Smartphone
“It’s here! Purism announces shipment of the Librem 5,” writes long-time Slashdot reader Ocean Consulting: Librem 5 is a landmark mobile device with a dedicated platform, runs PureOS Linux, and is the first mobile phone to seek hardware certification from the Free Software Foundation. Initially a crowd sourced funding campaign, the phone embraces principles of free software and user privacy. IP…
SwiftUI and Catalyst: Apple Executes Its Invisible Transition Strategy
Catalyst is Apple’s framework that enables developers to easily bring existing iOS apps to the Mac, while SwiftUI is a new, Swift-based technology that makes it easy for developers to create one app that runs on all of Apple’s platforms. Jason Snell from Macworld highlights the slow, invisible transition of these new technologies. From the report: Catalyst, which arrives this fall,…