Google Says its Quantum Computer is More Than 100 Million Times Faster Than a Conventional PC

By

-

December 9, 2015

During initial tests of Google and NASA’s quantum computing system, it was found that the system was unable to outperform regular computers. But now Google has announced that its quantum computer, D-Wave 2X has outperformed a traditional desktop by 108 times and making it one hundred million times faster than a conventional PC.

“What a D-Wave does in a second would take a conventional computer 10,000 years to do,” — said Hartmut Nevan, director of engineering at Google, during a news conference to announce the results.

Google says that their quantum computer, D-Wave 2X “raced” a conventional single-processor computer in a number of tasks, and outperformed it in every case. It has posted the results in a research paper, which is yet to be peer reviewed.

Also Read : Hackers Using Fake LinkedIn Profiles to Steal your Information

What is a Quantum Computer ?

Quantum computer is a computer which makes use of the quantum states of subatomic particles to store information. Quantum computer is different from digital electronic computers based on transistors. Whereas digital computers require data to be encoded into binary digits (bits), each of which is always in one of two definite states (0 or 1), quantum computation uses quantum bits (qubits), which can be in superpositions of states. The superposition of these qubits enable machines to make great numbers of computations to simultaneously, making a quantum computer highly desirable for certain types of processes.

Also Read : Kyocera Launches a New Soap Proof, Washable Phone

In two tests, the Google Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab today announced that it has found the D-Wave machine to be considerably faster than simulated annealing — a simulation of quantum computation on a classical computer chip. Google Google director of engineering Hartmut Neven went over the results of the tests in a blog post yesterday :

We found that for problem instances involving nearly 1000 binary variables, quantum annealing significantly outperforms its classical counterpart, simulated annealing. It is more than 108 times faster than simulated annealing running on a single core. We also compared the quantum hardware to another algorithm called Quantum Monte Carlo. This is a method designed to emulate the behavior of quantum systems, but it runs on conventional processors. While the scaling with size between these two methods is comparable, they are again separated by a large factor sometimes as high as 108.

The results are not a cut and dry victory for the machine, however. The D-Wave machine was specifically engineered to solve the problems faced by both computers, giving it a distinct advantage. And Google is also working on other forms of quantum hardware, including some that isn’t limited to the optimisation problems the annealer is set to solve.

Also Read : Power Paper – A Paper to Store Electricity Coming Soon

Kyocera Launches a New Soap Proof, Washable Phone

By

Avinash A

-

December 6, 2015

What all things you can imagine of washing in your day to day life?? May be utensils, clothes, vehicles and even the exterior of some of the electronic gadgets like television refrigerator etc. But have you ever imagined of washing your cell phone using soap and water? Yes you heard it right — Kyocera one of Japan’s multinational electronics producing company have introduced a new soap proof washable phone – DIGNO Rafre.

The Rafre is designed to be used in all type of environments without any fear of getting dirty as you can wash it by just using soap and water. You may just object by saying that water proof phones are no new inventions in the market. But there is a small change, other water proof phones are not designed to withstand the friction and disturbances caused during scrubbing and washing but the new washable phone DIGNO Rafre gets as edge in this case.

The Rafre is said to have a touch panel that works even when you use your wet hand on the screen or even when the whole screen is wet. Rafre is also resistive to scratches that may come when you scrub while washing. The Rafre also has bone conducting technology that provides audio without speakers.

Specifications of New Washable Phone

The Kyocera Digno Rafre comes with 2 GB of RAM. The phone packs 16 GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 128 GB via a microSD card. As far as the cameras are concerned, the Kyocera DIGNO Rafre packs a 13-megapixel primary camera on the rear.

The Kyocera DIGNO Rafre runs Android 5.1 and is powered by a 3000 mAh non removable battery. It measures 71.00 x 141.00 x 10.10 (height x width x thickness) and weighs 155.00 grams. The Kyocera DIGNO Rafre is a single SIM (GSM) smartphone that accepts a regular SIM. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 4G. Sensors on the phone include Proximity sensor, Accelerometer, and Gyroscope. This product is expected to hit the market by next week.

This phone is apt for children and germaphobes who usually drop their phone in their meals while taking pictures. One more advantage Kyocera claims is that it would help people to take bath tub selfies and the phone even comes with duck shaped floating stand.

More importantly, the innovation would provide an easy solution for removing the germs collected on the surface of phones which has been the concern for many germaphobes. Recent studies have found that handsets gather germs, including Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus mycoides, from hands, bathrooms and public transport. One study in particular found that particularly dirty phones can be covered with ten times more bacteria than a public toilet seat, including faecal matter.

While waterproof phones have been around for years, but creating soap-resistant washable phones has proved more difficult. But finally the human race have achieved another milestone.

Within 20 Years Nearly Half Of All Jobs In Japan Could Be Done By Robots

By

Avinash A

-

December 5, 2015

Since with the growth of technology, the world is going to become more automated in the coming years. Artificial Intelligence and Robotics is going to conquer the world in future years. A new study from the Nomura Research Institute (NRI) back proves that. According to the report from the Nomura Research Institute (NRI) released on Wednesday, about half of all jobs in Japan could be replaced by robots or artificial-intelligence programs within the next 10 to 20 years.

The institute studied 601 kinds of occupations together with researchers from Oxford University. They used an algorithm to examine each profession and the level of creativity or systematic flow it required by the worker, and found that 49% of them could have an alternative probability to handled by computer technology. Yumi Wakao, the researcher behind the study, said that this is “only a hypothetical technical calculation” and “doesn’t take into account social factors.”

Also Read : Nanoparticle Quantum Dot Will Charge Your Phone In 30 Seconds

Which Jobs In Japan Could or Couldn’t Done By Robots

According to the institute, jobs in Japan that could be replaced by robots and artificial intelligence are mainly those that don’t involve creativity or special knowledge, while those that can be focus on data analysis or systematic operations. The latter professions include train drivers, receptionists, oil refinery workers and security guards, the report said. Interestingly, earlier this year a hotel in Japan became the first to try replacing all its staff with robots. In fact, the hotel was designed to have robots handle every part of your stay, including handling your luggage and checking in and out of the hotel. Whether this model proves successful or not is open to debate, but given Japan’s aging demographics, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a lot of robot workers in the coming years.

Also Read : Research Shows That Sound Waves Move Data Faster

Occupations that required creativity, cooperativeness and negotiation skills were likely to be handled by humans even with the development of technology. Such professions include fashion designers, bartenders, film directors, surgeons and songwriters, the report said.

Osborne Associate Professor US and UK was carried out in the same manner as the analysis and found that percentage of professions in which humans could be replaced by robots and artificial intelligence was 47% in the U.S. and 35% in the U.K.

I think this is not a big news, we all know one day or another an army of robots, machines, Artificial Intelligence etc. will take over mankind. They have already debuted as a cab driver, department store receptionist, and even television personality.

Also Read : Li-Fi Is Here, 100 Times Faster Than Wi-Fi

LiFi Is Here, 100 Times Faster Than Wi-Fi

By

Avinash A

-

November 27, 2015

Imagine a world where every one of the billions of lightbulbs in use today is a wireless hotspot delivering connectivity at speeds that can only be dreamed of with Wi-Fi. That’s the goal of the man who invented such a technology, and this week LiFi took a step out of the domain of science fiction. Yes scientists have just field-tested the new wireless technology called Li-Fi for the first time and achieved marvelous wireless speeds that are 100 times faster than current WiFi speeds.

It was tested this week by Estonian start-up Velmenni, in Tallinn.Velmenni used a Li-Fi-enabled light bulb to transmit data at speeds of 1Gbps. Laboratory tests have shown theoretical speeds of up to 224Gbps. All it requires is a light source, such as a standard LED bulb, an internet connection and a photodetector.

What Is LiFi Technology And How Does It Works?

LiFi is an alternative name for superfast future Wi-Fi. The term LiFi was first coined by Prof Harald Hass, a professor of mobile communications at the University of Edinburgh, who demonstrated the technology at a Ted (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in 2011. His talk, which has now been watched nearly two million times, showed an LED lamp streaming video. Prof Hass described a future when billions of light bulbs could become wireless hotspots.

A year after his TED Talk, though, Haas created pureLiFi with a group of people who had been researching the technology since 2008. The company has claimed to be the “recognized leader in LiFi technology” and has already produced two products. After that, pureLiFi announced a partnership in which a French industrial-lighting company will roll out the firm’s VLC technology in its products by the third quarter of 2016.

How does LiFi work?

This is how pureLiFi describes the operation Li-Fi technology:

“When a constant current is applied to an LED [light-emitting-diode] lightbulb, a constant stream of photons are emitted from the bulb which is observed as visible light. If the current is varied slowly, the output intensity of the light dims up and down. Because LED bulbs are semiconductor devices, the current, and hence the optical output, can be modulated at extremely high speeds which can be detected by a photodetector device and converted back to electrical current. The intensity modulation is imperceptible to the human eye, and thus communication is just as seamless as RF [radio frequency technology]. Using this technique, high-speed information can be transmitted from an LED lightbulb.”

Haas said during his Ted Talk in 2011 that the current infrastructure would allow every single LED lightbulb to be transformed into an ultrafast wireless router.

“All we need to do is fit a small microchip to every potential illumination device and this would then combine two basic functionalities: illumination and wireless data transmission,” — Haas said. “In the future, we will not only have 14 billion lightbulbs, we may have 14 billion Li-Fis deployed worldwide for a cleaner, greener and even brighter future.”

Limitations Of Li-Fi

Because Li-Fi technology uses visible light as its means of communication, it won’t work through walls. This means that to have a Li-Fi network throughout your house, you will need these lightbulbs in every room (and maybe even the fridge) to have seamless connectivity.
Li-Fi does not work outdoors, meaning that public Li-Fi will not be able to replace public Wi-Fi networks any time soon. While Li-Fi’s employment in direct sunlight won’t be possible, pureLiFi said that through the use of filters the technology can be used indoors even when sunlight is present.

Of course, one of the biggest drawbacks is the fact the light needs to be on all the time to deliver connectivity. While that’s not going to be an issue in industrial and retail environments, it’s will be both environmentally and practically problematic in domestic settings.

Li-Fi vs Wi-Fi — Here’s how Li-Fi will work in comparison with typical Wi-Fi networks, according to pureLiFi. | Image Source : PureLiFi

Mark Zuckerberg Quit His Job At Facebook Because Of This Bug

By

TechLog360

-

November 19, 2015

Mark Zuckerburg Quit His Job At Facebook

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Quit his job at Facebook. Yes you heard it right. You can check it . Click here to see the Facebook post of Mark Zuckerberg about quiting his job.

Don’t be surprised or shocked, because what you just saw was only an illusion. This is actually a minor bug in the popular social media website that allows anyone to manipulate the life event of any user who has his work status posted on Facebook. The bug, uncovered by the independent hacker Sachin Thakuri, is not a technical flaw.

Also Read : TechPrep – A Website From Facebook Helps To Start Your Programming Careers

How Mark Zuckerberg Quit His Job

All Thakuri did is took the original URL of Mark Zuckerberg life event:

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/timeline/story?ut=32&wstart=-2051193600&wend=2147483647&hash=971179541251&pagefilter=3&__mref=message_bubble

Also Read : Facebook Allows Anyone To See All Photos You Ever Liked By A Simple Search

See, Mark did left his job at Facebook. No!! Not literally though. So what Sachin Thakuri did was changed the above link by removing the ustart=1 parameter and the work status of Mark Zuckerberg changed.Here is the changed url:

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/timeline/story?ut=32&wstart=-2051193600&wend=2147483647&hash=971179541251&pagefilter=3&&__mref=message_bubble

Clicking on the above manipulated URL displays the same life event page of Mark Zuckerberg but with the text: Left Job at Facebook instead displaying Started Working at Facebook. This bug is applicable to every user on Facebook who has his work status published on Facebook.

Although this is not a serious privacy or security bug, but it could be used maliciously by bad actors in order to trick victims into believing that someone have quit their job.Thakuri reported this bug to the Facebook security team, but the bug has not been fixed as of yet. So, we can expect from the company to fix this issue as soon as possible.

Also Read : A Developer Filed Lawsuit With Fraud Charges Against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg In Silicon Valley Land Case

Nanoparticle Quantum Dot Will Charge Your Phone In 30 Seconds

By

TechLog360

-

November 14, 2015

Scientists from Vanderbilt University believe that have found a way to charge a smartphone battery in 30 seconds. They say that using ‘quantum dots’ found in fool’s gold (iron pyrite) can speed up the time it takes to charge phones.

A quantum dot is a nanoparticle made of any semiconductor material. This material can be silicon, cadmium selenide, cadmium sulfide, or indium arsenide. They are 10,000 times narrower than a human hair – that have unique electrical properties. The ‘dots’ can be altered to have certain properties, like the ability to generate charge when strained.

Also Read : Pakistani Researchers Developed Solar-Powered Emergency Mobile Network

Up until now, the effect of these dots on improving charging has only lasted for a few cycles.
This is because when the particles get very small they begin to chemically react with the electrolytes. As a result, they can only charge and discharge a few times.

“Researchers have demonstrated that nanoscale materials can significantly improve batteries, but there is a limit,” — says Cary Pint, head of the research and assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University.

Also Read : A Smart Glove That Translates Sign Language Into Text And Speech

He explains the process in a very interesting way.

According to Pint, “You can think of it like vanilla cake. Storing lithium or sodium in conventional battery materials is like pushing chocolate chips into the cake and then pulling the intact chips back out. With the interesting materials we’re studying, you put chocolate chips into vanilla cake and it changes into a chocolate cake with vanilla chips.”

Also Read : A Device To Turn Any Gun Into Anti-Drone Weapon That Shoots Down UAVs With Radio Waves

As a result, the rules that forbid the use of ultrasmall nanoparticles in batteries no longer apply. In fact, the scales are tipped in favour of very small nanoparticles.

What makes iron pyrite perfect for this is firstly it is one of the most abundant materials on Earth, basically there’s lots of it.

It’s also cheap and has a unique way of changing form into an iron and a lithium-sulphur compound to store energy.

Also Read : Research Shows That Sound Waves Move Data Faster

Pint believes that understanding of chemical storage mechanisms and how they depend on nanoscale dimensions is critical to enable the evolution of battery performance at a pace that stands up to Moore’s law and can support the transition to electric vehicles.

The batteries of tomorrow that can charge in seconds and discharge in days will not just use nanotechnology, they will benefit from the development of new tools that will allow us to design nanostructures that can stand up to tens of thousands of cycles and possess energy storage capacities rivalling that of gasoline,’ says Pint. ‘Our research is a major step in this direction.’

Also Read : Samsung Going To Power Next Generation Smartphones With 6GB RAM Chips

Research Shows That Sound Waves Move Data Faster

By

TechLog360

-

November 6, 2015

Researchers from the University of Leeds and Sheffield University have created a way to move data through magnetic nanowires by using surface acoustic waves as the motivating force. Being developed for use in so-called racetrack solid-state memory, the researchers claim that using sound waves for data transfer should markedly increase computer processing speeds while vastly reducing power consumption.

Developed by IBM, racetrack memory (where data runs up and down a track of wires like race cars, hence the name) uses the transition between different magnetic moments (directions) in the domain walls separating each of the magnetic areas found in the nanowires that make up the memory. As each transition between these areas results in an angular displacement (a change of magnetic “direction”) of 90 or 180 degrees, the racetrack memory allocates a one or zero to each of these changes to represent binary data along the length of the wire.

Also Read : A Smart Glove That Translates Sign Language Into Text And Speech

To move bits of data through these minuscule magnetic wires – 20 times smaller than a human hair – strong magnetic fields and induced electric currents are usually used to overcome the magnetic inertia encountered in the domain walls. However, these transfer methods are somewhat inefficient in terms of heat production and power consumption than the increased data speeds readily justify.

Looking for a way to overcome these power inefficiencies, Dr Tom Hayward from the University of Sheffield and Professor John Cunningham from the University of Leeds together hit upon the idea of manipulating magnetic domain walls by passing two counter-propagating surface acoustic waves (SAW) across the piezoelectric substrate to which the nanowires are fixed.

Also Read : InFocus Kangaroo Launched As World’s Smallest Windows 10 PC

In other words, the researchers sent two sound waves across the surface of a racetrack memory in opposite directions. Where the sound waves met, a standing acoustic wave was formed which was then used to isolate and manipulate the arrays for the more efficient movement of energy across the magnetic domain walls.

This is because, at the antinodes of standing stress/strain waves, the domain walls become attracted to and pinned at these points and the data moves along the wires in a ratcheted motion toward positions where stress gradients are minimized. In this way, multiple domain walls can be synchronously propagated at high velocities by shifting the frequency of the SAWs.

Also Read : A Device To Turn Any Gun Into Anti-Drone Weapon That Shoots Down UAVs With Radio Waves

This essentially means that the researchers discovered that the direction of data flow could be altered by changing the pitch of the sound created so, in a sense, the researchers “sang” to the data to move it.

“The key advantage of surface acoustic waves in this application is their ability to travel up to several centimeters without decaying, which at the nano-scale is a huge distance,” — said Doctor Hayward. “Because of this, we think a single sound wave could be used to ‘sing’ to large numbers of nanowires simultaneously, enabling us to move a lot of data using very little power. We’re now aiming to create prototype devices in which this concept can be fully tested.”

The results of this research were recently published in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

Also Read : Forget Bluetooth,Researchers Developed A New Technology That Transmit Data Through Your Body

Hackers Claim $1 Million Bounty For Remotely Jailbreaking iOS 9

By

Sabarinath

-

November 3, 2015

Do you remember a cyber security firm, Give 3D Touch To Android Phone Like iPhone 6s By Hacking Its Barometer around the world. That the company will pay One million U.S. dollars bounty to hackers for remotely jailbreaking iOS 9. And now we have a winner, someone just found an iOS zero-day vulnerability that could allow an attacker to remotely hack your iPhone running the latest version of iOS, i.e. iOS 9.

The hack came about as part of a challenge started in September by bug bounty startup Zeriodium, that was expired on October 31. The rules of the contest needed the hackers to exploit the iOS device using an attack via a web page on Safari or Chrome browser or In-app browsing action or text message or MMS.

Also Read : Give 3D Touch To Android Phone Like iPhone 6s By Hacking Its Barometer

It wasn’t an easy challenge. In mid-October Chaouki Bekrar, founder of Zerodium, reported to Motherboard that two hackers team were contacted the company but they both got stuck and were unable to proceed ahead. Eventually, however, one of the teams found a way. Bekrar explained that the winning team found a “number of vulnerabilities” in Chrome and iOS to bypass “almost all mitigations” and achieve “a remote and full browser-based (untethered) jailbreak.” There have been no official details released regarding the successful remote jailbreak, but as Motherboard points out, this would be the first jailbreak of its kind since iOS 7.

Our iOS #0day bounty has expired & we have one winning team who made a remote browser-based iOS 9.1/9.2b #jailbreak (untethered). Congrats!
— Zerodium (@Zerodium) November 2, 2015

Also Read : Vodafone Says Hackers Got Access To Bank Details Of 1,827 Customers In A Recent Attack

Bekrar declined to identify the team that won the prize, as well as details about the exploits they found. He also declined to say how much he is planning to sell this exploit for.

But there’s no doubt that for some, this exploit is extremely valuable. Intelligence agencies such as the NSA and the CIA have run into problems when trying to hack into iPhones to spy on their targets, and the FBI has publicly complained about Apple’s encryption for months. This exploit would allow them to get around any security measures and get into the target’s iPhone to intercept calls, messages, and access data stored in the phone.

Also Read : Now Hackers Can Use Siri And Google Now To Attack Smartphones