All posts tagged: computing

MacBook Neo vs. iPad Air: How I’m deciding between Apple’s 9 computing devices

MacBook Neo vs. iPad Air: How I’m deciding between Apple’s $599 computing devices

Published by skeptic

Maria Diaz/Kerry Wan/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. With the introduction of the new MacBook Neo, Apple has added a new entry-level option to its lineup. Before, if you didn’t want to commit to a new MacBook Air or Pro, you were relegated to the iPad, which offers a significantly different user experience.   Also: After using MacBook Neo, it’s clear Windows needs to rethink its PC strategy (and fast) But all that has changed. The new MacBook Neo starts at $599 — the same price as the latest affordable iPad Air M4 with 128GB of storage, bringing the MacBook experience to an accessible price point. This puts these two devices on equal footing, but they’re very different in terms of usability. Which one is a better fit for you? Let’s break it down.  Specifications iPad Air M4 (11-inch) MacBook Neo  Display 11-inch Liquid Retina display, 500 nits brightness, 264 ppi 13-inch Liquid Retina display, 500 nits brightness Weight 1.03 pounds (465 grams) 2.7 pounds (1.23 kg) Processor Apple M4   Apple A18 Pro …

The race to solve the biggest problem in quantum computing

The race to solve the biggest problem in quantum computing

Published by skeptic

Quantum computers won’t be truly useful until they can correct their mistakes davide bonaldo / Alamy Quantum computers are already here, but they make far too many errors. This is arguably the biggest obstacle to the technology really becoming useful, but recent breakthroughs suggest a solution may be on the horizon. Errors creep into traditional computers too, but there are well-established techniques for correcting them. They rely on redundancy, where extra bits are used to detect when 0s incorrectly swap to 1s or vice versa. In the quantum world, however, it is a lot more challenging. The laws of quantum mechanics forbid information from being duplicated inside a quantum computer, so redundancy must be achieved by spreading information across groups of qubits – the building blocks of quantum computers – and utilising phenomena that only exist in quantum settings, such as when pairs of particles become linked via quantum entanglement. These qubit groups are called logical qubits and figuring out the optimal way to build and use them is crucial for determining how best to …

Before quantum computing arrives, this startup wants enterprises already running on it

Before quantum computing arrives, this startup wants enterprises already running on it

Published by skeptic

Eighteen months after selling his startup to chipmaker AMD for $665 million, Finnish entrepreneur Peter Sarlin has left his role as CEO of the unit now known as AMD Silo AI. He is now chairman at two new ventures: physical AI lab NestAI, and QuTwo, an AI startup aimed at helping companies prepare for the era of quantum computing Currently fully funded by Sarlin’s family office, PostScriptum, QuTwo describes itself as “an AI lab for the quantum era.” Rather than waiting for quantum computing to mature, however, it is already working with enterprise customers — including European fashion retailer Zalando, with which it is developing what the two companies call “lifestyle agents,” AI tools designed to go beyond product search and proactively suggest products and experiences. QuTwo is built on the premise that AI is hitting an efficiency wall that quantum computing may eventually help solve. But the company is not betting on when that will happen, Sarlin told TechCrunch. Instead, the startup is building QuTwo OS as an orchestration layer that allows companies to …

MIT scientists built photonic ‘ski jumps’ that beam light off chips for faster quantum computing

MIT scientists built photonic ‘ski jumps’ that beam light off chips for faster quantum computing

Published by Jenni Sidey

Inside most photonic chips, light races through tiny optical wires. It carries information far faster than electricity can in many conventional systems. But once that light is trapped on the chip, sending it out into open space in a controlled, scalable way becomes much harder. A team led by researchers at MIT and MITRE now says it has built a way around that bottleneck. They did this using microscopic structures that curl upward from the chip surface like ski jumps. The devices, described in Nature, let researchers steer thousands of tiny laser beams off a chip and into free space with unusual precision. In demonstrations, the team used the platform to project full-color images about half the size of a grain of table salt. Moreover, they used the platform to control diamond-based quantum bits, or qubits, with resonant laser light. “On a chip, light travels in wires, but in our normal, free-space world, light travels wherever it wants. Interfacing between these two worlds has long been a challenge. But now, with this new platform, we …

HPCTRAIN to build EU high-performance computing workforce

HPCTRAIN to build EU high-performance computing workforce

Published by skeptic

New traineeship initiative aims to strengthen high-performance computing (HPC) skills across Europe and connect young professionals with the growing supercomputing sector. Europe has launched a new initiative to strengthen its high-performance computing workforce as demand for advanced computing expertise continues to grow across science, industry and government. The HPCTRAIN project, launched by the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), will offer traineeships for early-career professionals seeking to develop practical HPC skills and gain experience with supercomputing technologies. The programme began in January 2026 and is scheduled to run for four years. Its organisers say the initiative is designed to help address Europe’s shortage of skilled specialists capable of working with high-performance computing systems, which underpin fields ranging from artificial intelligence to climate modelling and advanced manufacturing. The initiative has received €5m funding through the European Union’s Digital Europe Programme following the call DIGITAL-EUROHPC-JU-2022-TRAINING-03. Expanding Europe’s supercomputing ambitions The EuroHPC JU is a joint initiative involving the European Union and participating countries, created to coordinate investment in supercomputing infrastructure and research across the region. In …

Livermore Computing: Accelerating excellence in HPC

Livermore Computing: Accelerating excellence in HPC

Published by skeptic

Judy Hill, Deputy for High Performance Computing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), shares a look at the Livermore Computing high-performance computing centre and the groundbreaking work taking place there. High-performance computing (HPC) enables discovery and innovation through the extraordinary simulations it makes possible. HPC is now high on the list of priorities for the US, harnessing its potential to save energy, reduce emissions, boost competitiveness, and strengthen the country’s position as a global technology leader. At U.S Department of Energy (DOE) facilities such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), HPC has become the ‘third pillar’ of research, joining theory and experiment as an equal partner. LLNL’s premier HPC centre, Livermore Computing, delivers systems, tools, and expertise to support the advancement of HPC capabilities. The centre’s missions are threefold: To learn more about the work taking place at Livermore Computing and the potential this has for a wide range of real-world applications, The Innovation Platform spoke to LLNL’s Deputy for High Performance Computing, Judy Hill. Can you briefly elaborate on how LLNL is contributing to …

E-CoRe reversible computing project targets EU energy-efficient computing

E-CoRe reversible computing project targets EU energy-efficient computing

Published by skeptic

The EU-funded E-CoRe initiative aims to cut digital energy use by rethinking computing from the ground up. Digital infrastructure already consumes a significant share of the world’s electricity, and that demand is climbing as artificial intelligence, cloud platforms and distributed systems expand. Against that backdrop, a new European research initiative is focusing on reversible computing as a potential path toward large-scale energy savings in information technology. The project, known as E-CoRe (Energy-efficient Computing via Reversibility), is coordinated by the University of Bologna and supported through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Networks programme. It brings together seven core European partners, spanning universities and research centres, along with eight additional associated partners from academia and industry. Why energy-efficient computing needs a new approach Computers consume energy not only when performing calculations but also when discarding information. According to fundamental physical principles, erasing a bit of information carries an unavoidable energy cost – a constraint often described through the Landauer limit. In conventional computing systems, information is routinely overwritten or deleted, resulting in cumulative energy losses. Reversible computing takes …

Lenovo’s Latest Wacky Concepts Include a Laptop With a Built-in Portable Monitor

Lenovo’s Latest Wacky Concepts Include a Laptop With a Built-in Portable Monitor

Published by skeptic

Do you like having a second screen with your computer setup? What if your laptop could carry a second screen for you? That’s the idea behind Lenovo’s latest proof of concept, the ThinkBook Modular AI PC, announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Lenovo is never shy to show off wacky, weird concept laptops. We’ve seen a PC with a transparent screen, one with a rollable OLED screen, a swiveling screen, and another with a flippy screen. At CES earlier this year, the company showed off a gaming laptop with a display that expands at the push of a button. Sometimes, these concepts turn into real products that go on sale (often in limited quantities). At MWC 2026, Lenovo trotted out three concepts. While it’s unclear whether any of them will become real, purchasable products, there’s some unique utility here, and a peek at how computing experiences could change in the future. A Laptop With a Built-In Portable Screen The ThinkBook Modular AI PC has a second screen hanging magnetically off the back of the …

Researchers may have observed triplet superconductivity – the holy grail in quantum computing

Researchers may have observed triplet superconductivity – the holy grail in quantum computing

Published by Jenni Sidey

A wafer-thin layer of rust, formed naturally in air, helped researchers spot a behavior many physicists have chased for decades. That oxide, hematite (α-Fe2O3), appeared on the top layer of a stacked film device and “pinned” a magnetic layer in place. With that pinning, the team could flip the device between two magnetic states and watch what happened to superconductivity. What they saw was small in size but big in meaning: the transition temperature shifted the “wrong” way for an ordinary superconductor. Professor Jacob Linder at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), working at the QuSpin research centre, says the results point toward a long-sought state called triplet superconductivity. “We think we may have observed a triplet superconductor,” he said. The work, done with experimental collaborators in Italy, was published in Physical Review Letters and selected as an editor’s recommendation. “One of the major challenges in quantum technology is being able to perform data operations with sufficiently high accuracy,” says Jacob Linder. (CREDIT: Per Henning, NTNU) A superconductor that carries spin Superconductors carry …

Human brain cells on a chip learned to play Doom in a week

Human brain cells on a chip learned to play Doom in a week

Published by skeptic

A screen image of Doom being played by human neurons on a chip Cortical Labs A clump of human brain cells can play the classic computer game Doom. While its performance is not up to par with humans, experts say it brings biological computers a step closer to useful real-world applications, like controlling robot arms. In 2021, the Australian company Cortical Labs used its neuron-powered computer chips to play Pong. The chips consisted of clumps of more than 800,000 living brain cells grown on top of microelectrode arrays that can both send and receive electrical signals. Researchers had to carefully train the chips to control the paddles on either side of the screen. Now, Cortical Labs has developed an interface that makes it easier to program these chips using the popular programming language Python. An independent developer, Sean Cole, then used Python to teach the chips to play Doom, which he did in around a week. “Unlike the Pong work that we did a few years ago, which represented years of painstaking scientific effort, this …