radarvectors - Slashdot User

Programmable Quantum Computer Created 132

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday November 26, 2009 @12:41PM from the four-out-of-five-ain't-bad dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A team at NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) used berylium ions, lasers and electrodes to develop a quantum system that performed 160 randomly chosen routines. Other quantum systems to date have only been able to perform single, prescribed tasks. Other researchers say the system could be scaled up. 'The researchers ran each program 900 times. On average, the quantum computer operated accurately 79 percent of the time, the team reported in their paper.'"

Comment Re:Kansas is unsafe but Long Island isn't? (Score 1) 275

by radarvectors on Tuesday July 28, 2009 @03:26PM (#28857269) Attached to: DHS Pathogen Lab To Be Built In "Tornado Alley"

Currently this sort of research is done on Plum Island (http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=19-40-00-00) which is conveniently separated from everything else by a nice long bridge.

Although Long Island is separated from the continental US by a bridge, Plum Island has no bridge at all, and is served by a ferry from Long Island.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=plum+island,+ny&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=41.178719,-72.188673&spn=0.033657,0.06978&t=h&z=14&iwloc=A

There's also an argument to be made that a facility on an island is easier to secure.

Comcast Intercepts and Redirects Port 53 Traffic 527

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday June 09, 2009 @02:11PM from the why-we-need-ipv6 dept.

An anonymous reader writes "An interesting (and profane) writeup of one frustrated user's discovery that Comcast is actually intercepting DNS requests bound for non-Comcast DNS servers and redirecting them to their own servers. I had obviously heard of the DNS hijacking for nonexistent domains, but I had no idea they'd actually prevent people from directly contacting their own DNS servers." If true, this is a pretty serious escalation in the Net Neutrality wars. Someone using Comcast, please replicate the simple experiment spelled out in the article and confirm or deny the truth of it. Also, it would be useful if someone using Comcast ran the ICSI Netalyzr and posted the resulting permalink in the comments.

Submission + - Apple covers-up laptop display defect (zdnet.com)

Submitted by on Tuesday August 26, 2008 @05:54PM

An anonymous reader writes: The ZDNet Apple blog has an entry about Apple refusing to address a potential display manufacturing defect with some of it's older laptops, not even acknowledging that they've even heard of any complaints on the issue. Their forum users are censored from open communication so they cannot determine for themselves how widespread the defect is. This has also led to speculation about how any current product manufacturing concerns would be handled.

Many PowerBook G4 have failed with the "Bridget Riley vertical lines" defect, some within their 1 or 3 year warranty, but many just after their 1 or 3 year warranty. The failed PowerBooks appear to have come from a particular factory during a particular time period.

Since AppleCare in various countries have no central database with which to share data, Apple is unable to even track when a defect is occurring around the world.

Various websites have documented some of the censorship, and you can read posts about the censorship in Apple's own forums. Other sites are attempting to gather together affected users, and have even started their own uncensored discussion group devoted exclusively to the "vertical lines" defect.

Slashdot Top Deals