More and more, I read about what other people are doing only to be entertained; fringe science material serves that function for me that science fiction used to serve.

I guess I think that the bleeding edge of high tech, in a world run by corrupt institutions, has little potential to improve my life beyond amusement.

And yes, certainly, in an increasingly complex (and thus increasingly inherently fragile and corruptible) world, like today's, we really can't be too careful about scams. Insisting that claims be falsifiable is about the only armor we have left (if we can call it armor).

You might recall that I didn't state categorically that Google couldn't be fooled. I do agree that, since big companies have nore credibility, there is more motivation to scam them. And maybe they are more tempted to scam others as well.

But it seems you are asserting that Google has in fact been scammed in this particular case.

Perhaps. Personally I don't know. To me it looks as if Google is presenting a paper claiming that it has accomplished something surprising with the D-Wave chip that others have been laughing about. But I must admit that I don't understand it. (I don't know how to make a quantum computer, only a few things, such as breaking RSA, that I could do with a QC if I had one.) We'll see.

Personally I am bored of scams; when I log into Slashdot and discuss things in which I am no expert, I am more interested in discussing /interesting/ scenarios. For example, cases in which someone /does/ possess a "capstone" technology -- that is, a missing link which leverages published research -- toward a disruptive technology. And I maintain that if I, at any rate, were the first to invent a "capstone" technology toward self-replicating nanobots or a practical quantum computer -- I would not tell the general public -- not credibly -- before I go about using it to my own profit. This seems like the optimal strategy in the Prisoner's Dilemma. I expect you might agree on this point.

I agree that mere lies sometimes suffice to get what one wants. And I remember what John D. Rockefeller did when he learned his shoeshine boy was trading stocks. But D-Wave somehow got the collaboration of Google. Should we speculate that Google's collaboration is, in turn, another PR stunt? I won't discount that possibility, though personally I tend to give Google more credit than that.

If you have only part of a system, your only options are to publish or patent. If you have the whole system, trade secrets, and some degree of obscurity, may serve you better. And in an "information economy," in which attention, not information, is the scarce good, it is possible to hide something in plain sight. (This holds at least as long as information is growing faster than population!)

Admittedly speculation, and again, my apologies to Karl Popper (although his rules bind engineers less than scientists, if at all). While I have a degree in computer engineering and am an amateur futurist, I am not a QC researcher. For any valuable insights I must credit the 1992 film /Sneakers/ and my classmate who worries that game theory predicts that the first action of the first team to develop self-replicating nanobots (another disruptive technology) would be to assassinate its actual or potential competitors, including himself. :)

If you were to make a "quantum leap" that made quantum computing practical, it might behoove you to send mixed signals with your PR. You would want to attract the attention of a buyer who is: 1. aggressively seeking 2. able to pay for, and 3. able to roll out such technology; and you would want to be able to offer something like exclusivity to that buyer. But your public demonstrations would have reduced your competitors' R&D costs, by proving that such a thing is possible. If you "throw" your public demonstrations (make yourself seem like a sensationalistic liar), later you can more easily sweep away most credible evidence of your technology. But your truly motivated buyer will notice even your lame demonstration. Your buyer gets the technology, not in complete secrecy, but in relative, practical secrecy, because no public information about the technology is credible. With apologies to Karl Popper.

Imagine if patent clerks were required to search registries of public-domain and other free-license IP for prior art before issuing a patent. Instead of defensive patenting, IP creators could simply publish their IP to the registry.

Free-IP ideologues could rush to publish all of their wild ideas as public domain, GPL, or whatever, just to make sure no money-grubbing corporation ever gets a patent on it.

Registries might just be such things as SourceForge and CPAN or might be established specially for this purpose, with a record format similar to that of the actual patent registry. Maybe it could be called Not A Patent Server (NAPSER). ;-)

Wouldn't this benefit all parties? All that is, except the patent lawyers, USPTO, and the government that is diverting the patent fees for general budgetary needs?

-ldg