Quantum systems are notoriously prone to errors and noise. In order to overcome this and build a functional quantum computer, physicists should ideally understand the noise across an entire system. That has been out of reach until now, with Dr. Robin Harper and colleagues developing the first system-wide quantum algorithm to characterize noise. …
Tag: noise
Human-linked Earth vibrations dropped 50% during Covid-19 lockdown
Between March and May 2020, many people across Earth went into lockdown. During those months, seismographs recorded a drop in human-linked vibrations in the solid Earth, by an average of 50%. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/covid19-lockdown-2020-caused-50-percent-global-reduction-human-linked-earth-vibrations…
Quantum exciton found in magnetic van der Waals material
Things can always be done faster, but can anything beat light? Computing with light instead of electricity is seen as a breakthrough to boost computer speeds. Transistors, the building blocks of data circuits, are required to switch electrical signals into light in order to transmit the information via a fiber-optic cable. Optical computing could potentially save the time and energy used…
Scientists Say You Can Cancel the Noise But Keep Your Window Open
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Researchers in Singapore have developed an apparatus that can be placed in a window to reduce incoming sound by 10 decibels. The system was created by a team of scientists, including Masaharu Nishimura, who came up with the basic concept, and Bhan Lam, a researcher at Nanyang Technological University in…
xMEMS Announces World’s First Monolithic MEMS Speaker
An anonymous reader quotes a report from AnandTech: In the last few years, semiconductor manufacturing has become more prevalent and accessible, with MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems) technology now having advanced to a point that we can design speakers with characteristics that are fundamentally different from traditional dynamic drivers or balanced armature units. xMEMS’ “Montara” design promises to be precisely such an alternative….
Noise-cancelling windows halve traffic sounds even when they’re open
A grid of speakers fixed to a window can cut the noisiness of urban traffic in half, reducing the sound coming through an open window by up to 10 decibels Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2248486-noise-cancelling-windows-halve-traffic-sounds-even-when-theyre-open/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
‘Light squeezer’ reduces quantum noise in lasers, could enhance quantum computing and gravitational-wave detection
Physicists at MIT have designed a quantum “light squeezer” that reduces quantum noise in an incoming laser beam by 15 percent. It is the first system of its kind to work at room temperature, making it amenable to a compact, portable setup that may be added to high-precision experiments to improve laser measurements where quantum noise is a limiting factor. …
Linus Torvalds Likes His New AMD Threadripper System
This week Linus Torvalds and Dirk Hohndel re-created their keynote conversation for a special all-virtual edition of the Open Source Summit and Embedded Linux Conference North America. ZDNet reports:
While COVID-19 has slowed down many technologies, while speeding up other tech developments, it hasn’t affected Linux development much at all. “None of my co-developers have been hugely impacted either. I was worried…
Mini-marsquakes measured by InSight lander show effects of sun and wind
Compared with our own planet Earth, Mars might seem like a “dead” planet, but even there, the wind blows and the ground moves. On Earth, we study the ambient seismic noise rippling mainly due to ocean activity to peek underground at the structure of the Earth’s interior. Can we do the same on Mars, without an ocean? Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-07-mini-marsquakes-insight-lander-effects-sun.html…
Reporter Tests Walmart’s $140 Laptop ‘So You Wouldn’t Have To’
Ars Technica’s technology reporter Jim Salter tested Walmart’s 11.6-inch EVOO laptop, which sells for $139 and ships with just 2GiB of RAM and a 32GB SSD, which he worries “simply is not enough room for Windows itself, let alone any applications.”
The first thing I noticed while looking through the Windows install is that our “internal” Wi-Fi is actually a cheap USB…