System Bits: March 14


Neuromorphic computing While for five decades, Moore’s law held up pretty well, today, transistors and other electronic components are so small they’re beginning to bump up against fundamental physical limits on their size, and because Moore’s law has reached its end, it’s going to take something different to meet the need for computing that is ever faster, cheaper and more efficient. ... » read more

System Bits: March 7


Math picture language Harvard University researchers reminded that Galileo called mathematics the “language with which God wrote the universe,” as he described a picture-language. Now that language has a new dimension. [caption id="attachment_35501" align="alignright" width="300"] Arthur Jaffe (left) and Zhengwei Liu are the creators of a new, 3D pictorial language for mathematics. They b... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Security Last month’s distributed denial-of-service cyberattacks have put the spotlight on poorly secured or insecure Internet of Things devices. "The harsh reality is that cybersecurity is not even on the radar of many manufacturers," said Trent Telford, CEO of Covata, an Internet security firm. "Security will eventually become more of a priority, but it may well be too late for this genera... » read more

System Bits: Oct. 18


First quantum computer bridge Quantum computing is closer than we think. For the first time on a single chip, Sandia National Laboratories and Harvard University researchers have shown all the components needed to create a quantum bridge to link quantum computers together by forcefully embedding two silicon atoms in a diamond matrix. Sandia researcher Ryan Camacho pointed out that small qua... » read more

System Bits: Aug. 16


Record-breaking quantum logic gate Reaching the benchmark required theoretically to build a quantum computer, University of Oxford researchers have achieved a quantum logic gate with record-breaking 99.9% precision. They reminded that quantum computers, which function according to the laws of quantum physics, have the potential to dwarf the processing power of today's computers, able to pro... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: June 21


A chip with 1,000 processors A microchip containing 1,000 independent programmable processors has been designed by a team at the University of California, Davis. Called the KiloCore chip, it contains 621 million transistors and was fabricated by IBM using its 32nm CMOS technology. Cores operate at an average maximum clock frequency of 1.78 GHz, and they transfer data directly to each other r... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: June 7


Tiny lasers on silicon A group of scientists from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the University of California, Santa Barbara, Sandia National Laboratories, and Harvard University were able to fabricate tiny lasers directly on silicon. To do this, they first had to resolve silicon crystal lattice defects to a point where the cavities were essentially equivalent to those gr... » read more

System Bits: May 31


In automaton we trust? It is widely believed that there are two kinds of robots: friendly and helpful; or sinister and deadly. But do humans place too much trust in robots? According to the work of Harvard University senior Serena Booth, a computer science concentrator at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the answer is as complex and multifaceted as robots themsel... » read more

System Bits: March 29


Cryptographic system for controlling app access to data Researchers at MIT and Harvard University are hoping to change the fact that users of smartphones have no idea which data items their apps are collecting, where they’re stored, and if they’re stored securely with an application they’ve developed called Sieve. With Sieve, a Web user would store all personal data, in encrypted form... » read more

System Bits: Feb. 16


WW seismic network app UC Berkeley researchers have released a free Android app that uses a smartphone’s ability to record ground shaking from an earthquake, with the goal of creating a worldwide seismic detection network that could eventually warn users of impending jolts from nearby quakes. The app, called MyShake, is available from the Google Play Store and runs in the background with... » read more

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