Facebook's usage of Yahoo's technology

Article first published as Yahoo! Warns Facebook Over Patent Issues on Technorati.

The New York Times has reported that Yahoo has warned Facebook over utilization of many of the technologies already filed by Yahoo in 10 to 20 patents.

Yahoo has reported that some of the companies, who utilized the technologies in the Yahoo’s patents, have resolved the issues related to patents by licensing them and Facebook has also to resolve the issue by giving the licensing fees or Yahoo will sue against Facebook.

Yahoo stated that Facebook’s ads, news feed, messaging services and privacy controls are working on some of the technologies mentioned in Yahoo’s patents.

Representatives of the two companies have met on Monday.

"Yahoo has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property," the company said.

“Yahoo has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property,” a Yahoo spokesman said in an e-mailed statement (to The New York Times). “We must insist that Facebook either enter into a licensing agreement or we will be compelled to move forward unilaterally to protect our rights.”

Barry Schnitt, a spokesman for Facebook, said in a statement: “Yahoo contacted us the same time they called The New York Times and so we haven’t had the opportunity to fully evaluate their claims.”

I think meeting of the representatives of two companies is best thing, as negotiation can lead to better solution as compared to patent fight.

Source:

The New York Times

New level of Quantum computation

Article first published as Reaching New Horizons in Quantum Computation on Technorati.

IBM researchers have developed ways to overcome certain errors in quantum computation.

IBM researchers worked on the superconducting 3D qubits utilizing microfabrication techniques. Qubits are the basic units of information in quantum computing. They also worked on the 2D qubits to develop a “Controlled NOT gate” or CNOT gate, which is building block of quantum computation.

“The superconducting qubit research led by the IBM team has been progressing in a very focused way on the road to a reliable, scalable quantum computer. The device performance that they have now reported brings them nearly to the tipping point; we can now see the building blocks that will be used to prove that error correction can be effective, and that reliable logical qubits can be realized,” observes David DiVincenzo, professor at the Institute of Quantum Information, Aachen University and Forschungszentrum Juelich.

Researchers are considering this as a major leap in quantum computing.

“In the past, people have said, maybe it’s 50 years away, it’s a dream, maybe it’ll happen sometime,” said Mark B. Ketchen, manager of the physics of information group at I.B.M.’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. “I used to think it was 50. Now I’m thinking like it’s 15 or a little more. It’s within reach. It’s within our lifetime. It’s going to happen.”

IBM researchers will present this research at the annual meeting of American Physical Society taking place from February 27 – March 2, 2012 in Boston, Mass. Researchers will present that how close they are in solving the problems in quantum computation both by elevating the lifetime of the qubits of information and by improving the pace of computation.

Further Reading:

IBM

Image: Silicon Chip having three qubits (Credit: IBM)

iPad's trademark is the issue in Californian Court

Proview, the manufacturer of LED lights from China, has sued against Apple now in California's superior court about the trademark of iPad.

In 2000, Proview launched iPAD, i.e. Internet Personal Assistant Device, but that was not a market hit. The company is stating that the trademark is its property.

The press release reads: "The complaint provides evidence that the December 23, 2009 agreement that Proview Taiwan entered into was fraudulently induced by the concealment and suppression of material facts by Apple's agents, and that, as a result, the 2009 agreement is void. Once the agreement is voided for fraud, the iPad trademarks in the European Union, South Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam will revert back to Proview Taiwan."

"Among the many allegations in the U.S complaint are fraud by intentional misrepresentation, fraud by concealment, fraudulent inducement, and unfair competition," Proview said.

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Fossils of tallest and fattest penguin have been reconstructed

Scientists have successfully reconstructed the bones of 25 million years old penguin. They have found that those Kairuku pnguins were the tallest and fattest of all the known penguins.

"Kairuku was an elegant bird by penguin standards, with a slender body and long flippers, but short, thick legs and feet," said co-author Dr. Dan Ksepka, from North Carolina State University, US.
"If we had done a reconstruction by extrapolating from the length of its flippers, it would have stood over 6ft tall. In reality, Kairuku was around 4ft 2ins tall or so."


Further Reading:
SayPeople

Nokia's new 41 MP sensor embedded smartphone

Article first published as Nokia’s "Smart Smartphone" Features 41 MP Sensors and Pixel Oversampling Technology on Technorati.

Nokia has announced a new "smart smartphone", dubbed Nokia 808 PureView, having high resolution 41 megapixel sensors with high performance Carl Zeiss optics and new pixel oversampling technology. With the release of this phone Nokia has shown that how much the company likes to focus on camera.

"Nokia PureView imaging technology sets a new industry standard by whatever measure you use," said Jo Harlow, executive vice president of Nokia Smart Devices.  "People will inevitably focus on the 41 megapixel sensor, but the real quantum leap is how the pixels are used to deliver breath-taking image quality at any resolution and the freedom it provides to choose the story you want to tell."

This device has 4-inches of display and support full HD 1080p video. Nokia Rich Recording allows the audio recording at CD-like levels of quality. With the Dolby headphone technology, personal surround sound experience can be achieved. The operating system in the phone is Symbian Belle. The device has 1.3 Ghz single-core chip and 360-640 (nHD) resolutions. There is 512 MB of RAM and 16 GB of storage , which is expandable by using microSD.

The phone is expected to reach the shelves in Europe at 450 Euros in the next quarter.

Further Reading:

Nokia

Roche has extended tender offer for Illumina

Article first published as Roche’s Extension of Tender Offer and its Response by Illumina on Technorati.

Roche, Swiss Pharmaceutical Company, has announced the extension of tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Illumina Inc., a company working for life sciences tools and systems, at $44.50 per share, to 6:00 p.m., New York.

Roche started the tender offer on January 27, 2012. The offer was $44.50 per share in cash or an aggregate of about $5.7 billion on a fully diluted basis.

The company has reported that at the end of February 24, 2012, almost 102,165 shares had been tendered including 44,152 shares to be delivered within the next three working days of NASDAQ.

Illumina responded to the extension of the Roche’s tender offer as,
City time, on March 23, 2012, while all the terms and conditions are same. Previously, the offer was ending at 12:00 midnight, New York City time, at the end of the day on February 24, 2012.

The extension by Roche was expected. An extremely low number of shares have been tendered, consistent with our view – and that of our stockholders – that Roche’s offer does not reflect Illumina’s unique leadership position, business performance and future prospects.

We remain focused on continuing to develop breakthrough products that expand existing markets and create new ones. The potential of our industry is enormous, with major new markets emerging in medical diagnostics, reproductive health and cancer management.

Roche invested about 8 billion Swiss francs in R&D in 2011 and over 80,000 people were working for Roche in the world in 2011. Company shows interest in Illumina to expand the business of diagnostics.

Intel's processor in Orange's smartphone

Article first published as Intel Powered Smartphone Unveiled by Orange on Technorati.

The world was looking for other companies to work in partnership with Intel Corporation to produce smartphones and Orange, a brand of France Télécom, took the lead.

Orange has revealed Intel Atom chip, codenamed Medfield, processed smartphone, codenamed as Santa Clara, at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012. The phone will be available at “affordable” prices in the mid of this year. However, the company would change the name by “three to four months” when the phone will be launched.

"When we started working with them (Intel) it was a bit of a bet, there was no such product on the market, but we were willing to make that bet because we had a relationship with them and we also wanted to bring innovation — it's not about bringing the same thing as just anybody else," Patrick Remy, vice president of devices at Orange, said.

The device has a 4-inch display having Intel Atom Z2460 processor with HSPA+ connectivity. The smartphone also supports Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. It has an 8-MP camera with the facilitation of taking 10 pictures in less than second and capturing HD videos. The phone has less weight than iPhone 4S and weighs 117 gm or 4.1 ounces with dimensions of 123 mm x 63 mm x 9.99 mm. The phone operates on Android 2.3 version i.e. Gingerbread and has the ability to be upgraded to Android 4.0 version i.e. Ice Cream Sandwich.

"With Intel we have the price positioning that will allow us to address more than 60% of our customer base," said Yves Maitre, Orange's senior vice president of mobile multimedia and devices. "It really is in the middle range in terms of price, but is a high-end phone in terms of features, quality and speed."

"We firmly believe that all our customers should benefit from the smartphone revolution, and we remain committed to delivering innovative content and services across a wide range of devices to help customers stay connected and get more from their phone," Yves Maitre, senior vice president of mobile multimedia and devices at Orange, said in a statement.

Drought was the cause of Mayan destruction

Mayan civilization is renowned for their knowledge of math, language and astronomy. They were eliminated by 1000 C.E.

This research has been done by researchers from Yucatan Center for Scientific Research in Mexico and the University of Southampton in Britain.

The study was led by Professors Martín Medina-Elizalde of the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research in Mexico and Eelco Rohling of the University of Southampton in the UK. Professor Rohling says: “Our results show rather modest rainfall reductions between times when the Classic Maya civilization flourished and its collapse – between AD 800-950. These reductions amount to only 25 to 40 per cent in annual rainfall. But they were large enough for evaporation to become dominant over rainfall, and open water availability was rapidly reduced. The data suggest that the main cause was a decrease in summer storm activity.”

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 is in two models

Article first published as Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 series have two models on Technorati.

(Image: 10.1 inch model of Samsung Galaxy Tab 2)

Samsung has introduced the Galaxy Tab 2 series for this year with two options for the customers i.e. 7 inch version and 10.1 inch version. These tablet PCs will be available from March. Sale will be started from U.K. and then in the world.

The Galaxy Tab 2 series are available for exhibition at Samsung stand (Hall 8), Mobile World Congress (MWC).

Samsung has reported that this series of tablets are 3G and WiFi versions, in which 7 inch model is easy to handle while in travelling and 10 inch model is suitable for home and family use.

Both the tablets in the series have 1Ghz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity, front camera (VGA), rear camera (3MP) and 21Mbps HSPA+ connectivity, if you choose 3G model instead of WiFi.

(Image: 10.1 inch model of Samsung Galaxy Tab 2)

The differences in the tablets are in the screen resolution and battery. The screen resolution is 1280x800 and 1024x600 in 10.1 inch screen model and 7 inch screen model respectively. Battery is 4,000 mAh and 7000 mAh in 7 and 10.1 inch screen model respectively.

The tablets are running on IceCream Sandwich and will be presented in two models i.e. 16 GB and 32 GB. However, the memory can be expanded to 32GB with microSD Card.

(Image Credit: Samsung)

New CEO after Warren Buffett

Article first published as Warren Buffett’s annual letter to the company reported the new CEO on Technorati.

Warren Buffett has released the annual letter to the company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. based in Omaha, Nebraska, on Saturday in which he said about the successor but has not disclosed the name yet. Buffett said that he has no plans to leave the company soon.

Warren Buffett is an 81 years old billionaire, who is running the company for almost half a century.

"Your Board is equally enthusiastic about my successor as CEO, an individual to whom they have had a great deal of exposure and whose managerial and human qualities they admire," he said, adding there were two backup candidates as well.

Ajit Jain could be the next CEO as reported by the experts. Ajit Jain is currently operating the reinsurance business of the Berkshire. Warren Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger praise his work. "Charlie would gladly trade me for a second Ajit. Alas, there is none," Buffett said.

Buffett also reported that recently hired investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, would be able to operate the large investment portfolio after Buffett.

"Each will be handling a few billion dollars in 2012, but they have the brains, judgment and character to manage our entire portfolio when Charlie and I are no longer running Berkshire," Buffett said.

"My task is clear, and I'm on the prowl," he said.

On the other hand, the company has reported that its net income fell 30% in the fourth quarter as the paper value of its derivatives decreased. However, many of the subsidiaries performed well. Net income for the fourth quarter is $3.05 billion, or $1,846 per Class A share. This is a decrease from $4.4 billion net income, or $2,656 per share, a year ago.

Heart attack is more bad for women

Article first published as Heart Attack Can Be More Fatal in Women on Technorati.

Researchers from U.S. have found that although men, under the age of 65, have three times more chances to get heart attacks than women but heart attacks are more fatal in women.

Researchers worked on the National Registry of Myocardial Infarction of more than 1 million patients from 1994-2006. They have found that “silent” heart attacks gave fewer chances to women to call a doctor in-time leading to mortality. They reported that middle-aged women, who suffered from heart attacks, have 60% more chances to die as compared to the males.

Researchers have found that 4.2% of 292,000 men died in hospital whereas 6.8% of 108,000 women died.  They have also found that 3.7% of women, who experienced chest pain, died in hospital while 2.4% of men, who felt chest pain, died in hospital. On the other hand, 16.1% of women, who didn’t experience chest pain, died in hospital while 12.5% of men, who didn’t felt chest pain, died in hospital.

Researchers have reported, "Younger women presenting without chest pain had greater hospital mortality than younger men without chest pain."

Cathy Ross, Senior Cardiac Nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Contrary to popular belief, a heart attack doesn’t necessarily mean dramatic and excruciating chest pains.

“Symptoms vary; for some the pain is severe and yet others may feel nothing more than a mild discomfort or heaviness. The most important thing to remember is if you think you’re having a heart attack, call 999."

And the second most important thing is to go for a regular medical checkup as “Prevention is better than cure”. Remember, you have to care for yourself not only for you but for your family too.

This study has been published online in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Antipsychotic drugs could be dangerous to dementia patients

Article first published as Some Antipsychotic Drugs are More Fatal for Patients with Dementia on Technorati.

Researchers including Krista Huybrechts, PhD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and colleagues have found that some antipsychotic drugs have more chances of death for the patients of dementia.

Researchers worked on more than 75000 patients of age 65 and older, who have just started any of the six antipsychotic drugs (haloperidol, aripiprazole, olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone, ziprasidone), who were eligible for Medicaid and who were living in nursing homes in 2001-05, as approximately one-third of elderly people in nursing homes are treated with antipsychotics

Researchers compared the five drugs with risperidone, which is commonly used. They have found that the risk of death from haloperidol in dementia patients is very high and the drug’s usage "cannot be justified because of the excess harm." They have reported that quetiapine is safest among the six medications.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned about the usage of antipsychotic drugs in dementia patients because of chances of death but this study is first of its kind to tell about the comparative efficacy of the drugs.

Researchers have not considered other antipsychotics as they form less than 1% of prescriptions.

This study has been published online in the British Medical Journal.

Mozilla's new Marketplace

Article first published as Mozilla’s Marketplace for App Submission to be Launched at Mobile World Congress on Technorati.

Mozilla has announced on Wednesday that the app store, the Mozilla Marketplace, will be launched for developers at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in the end of February.

Mozilla has reported that the Mozilla Marketplace will build "open Web technologies like HTML5 and Mozilla-proposed APIs". The Marketplace will compose of games, music, media, productivity apps and much more.

The test version of Marketplace is online but as the number of testers has reached its maximum, Mozilla is not accepting new registrations. There is a link to know how to submit an app to the Developer Preview.

"The Web is the largest platform in the world. We are enabling the Web to be the marketplace, giving developers the opportunity to play on the biggest playing field imaginable," said Todd Simpson, Mozilla's chief of innovation, in a statement. "By building the missing pieces, Mozilla is now unlocking the potential of the Web to be the platform for creating and consuming content everywhere."

The Marketplace will be included in Mozilla Web Apps platform, which will also include the undisclosed APIs. Those standards of technology will be submitted to the W3C for standardization as reported by Mozilla. Mozilla also develops a "new identity system for the Web that puts users in control of their content, tying apps to the user and not the device or platform".

The app, which will be made by developers, will be featured in the launch later this year.

Colonoscopy helps to decrease deaths from cancer

Researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, have found that Colon screening through colonoscopy reduces the chances of death from colon cancer by upto 53%.

Researchers worked on 2602 patients, who underwent screening from 1980 to 1990, and publihed their findings in The New England Journal of Medicine.

From SayPeople,

In colonoscopy, a camera is inserted into the intestine to check for the cautious polyps. In case, there is no family history of colon cancer and first test is normal then further tests are done every 10 years. Other forms of colon cancer screening are stool tests and sigmoidoscopy, which is almost similar to colonoscopy but doesn’t involve detailed examination of the intestine.
This study confirms that the screening of colorectal cancer is very important. According to the American Cancer Society, increased screening and improved lifestyle resulted in decline of death rates as a result of cancer.

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Apache HHTP server 2.4 version has been released

Article first published as Latest Version of Apache HTTP Server on 17th anniversary of ASF on Technorati.

Apache Software Foundation (ASF), foundation established in 1999 and working on 150 open source projects, has celebrated its 17th anniversary with the release of the new version of Apache HTTP server i.e. 2.4 version.

The foundation released the 2.2 version in 2005. Its 2.3 version was a development only version. So, this version is the first big release by the foundation in six years.

Apache web server is operating on approximately 398 million sites across the net with operation on 65% of all sites across the web as reported by web research firm Netcraft. At this time, Microsoft’s IIS (Internet Information Services) operates about 15%, Russian open source web server NGINX is at 10% and Google’s custom-built server operates about 3%.

“This release delivers a host of evolutionary enhancements throughout the server that our users, administrators, and developers will welcome”, read a statement from Eric Covener, vice president of the Apache HTTP Server Project. “We’ve added many new modules in this release, as well as broadened the capability and flexibility of existing features.”

 This version is available under the Apache 2.0 open source license and uses less system resources, less memory with more control on concurrent operations.

Combo children vaccine may result in febrile seizures

Researchers have found that combo pertussis vaccine (combined diphtheria-tetanus toxoids-acellular pertussis–inactivated poliovirus– Haemophilus influenzae type b (DTaP-IPV-Hib) vaccine) usually results in febrile seizures in babies. These seizures are not long lasting.

Researchers have worked on almost 400,000 children in Denmark and concluded,

DTaP-IPV-Hib vaccination was associated with an increased risk of febrile seizures on the day of the first 2 vaccinations given at 3 and 5 months, although the absolute risk was small. Vaccination with DTaP-IPV-Hib was not associated with an increased risk of epilepsy.

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Tellurium is a rare Earth element also present in distant stars

Article first published as Tellurium, Rare Earth Element, Observed in Three Ancient Stars on Technorati.

Researchers, including researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), have found that “tellurium” – a brittle and semiconducting, very rare element on Earth – is present in three stars that are present few thousand years away from Earth and are almost 12 billion years old.

Researchers have used the spectrograph from the Hubble Space Telescope, which enabled the light to be split into spectrum of wavelength. The dips in spectrographic data told about the presence of atoms of the rare Earth element as the atoms absorbed certain wavelengths of starlight and gave rise to dips.

This research has also supported the theory that heavier elements in periodic table originated as a result of nuclear fusion from a rare type of supernova.

"We want to understand the evolution of tellurium — and by extension any other element — from the Big Bang to today," says Anna Frebel, an assistant professor of astrophysics at MIT and a co-author on the paper. "Here on Earth, everything's made from carbon and various other elements, and we want to understand how tellurium on Earth came about."

Researchers have also observed that the ratio of barium and strontium is same in all three stars.

"If you look at the periodic table, tellurium is right in the middle of these elements that are hard for us to measure," Jennifer Johnson, an associate professor of astronomy at Ohio State University said. "If we need to understand how [the r-process] works in the universe, we really have to measure this part of the periodic table. It's really cool that they got this element in this sea of unknown-ness."

This research has been published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Source:

MIT

Pancreatic cancer drug by Threshold Pharma has gotten better results

Threshold Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s experimental drug has achieved good results in phase 2b clinical trials. The drug is referred to as TH-302.

"We are again very encouraged that TH-302 is conferring benefit to patients with aggressive and difficult to treat cancers," Chief Executive Barry Selick said.

The company is working with German based pharmaceutical company i.e. Merck KGaA in developing the drug.

TH-302 is used to target hypoxic conditions of the cells which are usually common in solid tumors.

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Forest hidden by ashes in China

Researchers from University of Pennsylvania have uncovered a 298 million old forest at a site near Wuda, China.

"It's marvelously preserved," says University of Pennsylvania paleobotanist Hermann Pfefferkorn.

"We can stand there and find a branch with the leaves attached, and then we find the next branch and the next branch and the next branch. And then we find the stump from the same tree. That's really exciting."

Researchers have found the six different groups of trees in an area of 1000 square meters of ash layer. They have also found the specimens of “Noeggerathiales” i.e. spore bearing trees relating to ferns. 

"This is the first such forest reconstruction in Asia for any time interval, it's the first of a peat forest for this time interval and it's the first with Noeggerathiales as a dominant group," says Pfefferkorn. "It's a time capsule."

Further Reading:
SayPeople

Cloud computing by Microsoft has taken another step

Article first published as SkyDrive App's Integration in Windows 8 on Technorati.

Microsoft is going to integrate a desktop app version of SkyDrive, its cloud storing service, for Internet Explorer in Windows 8, as announced by Microsoft’s official Building Windows 8 blog.

SkyDrive service is storing about 10 petabytes of data and is in use by 17 million people at this time.

Mike Torres and Omar Shahine, group program managers for SkyDrive, have written in a company blog post that Microsoft is going to change SkyDrive "from a website today into a true device cloud for Windows customers."

"With Windows 8, we wanted to make sure that your files would be instantly available and up-to-date as you move between PCs — without configuring add-ons or using a USB drive," they further wrote.

This SkyDrive app is included in the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 and is available to use from any Metro-Style app. Consumer Preview of Windows 8 is going to be launched on February 29.

"This will bring a file cloud to every Metro style app, allowing you to open files in your SkyDrive and save them right back to your SkyDrive just like you would on your local hard drive," the blog post says.

Microsoft is also featuring "drag-and-drop upload and download support for SkyDrive, anywhere access to your data, offline access, and the power of Windows Explorer to manage your files and folders."

The blog post has also announced to fetch files through SkyDrive.com. Through the fetch files feature, users will access the files of their own desktop, from any computer, if the SkyDrive feature is on.

Omar Shahine and Mike Torres has described this as,

When designing the new SkyDrive, we knew not everyone would want to put 100% of their files in the cloud just yet. People are selective, and while some will move all of their files into SkyDrive, others will want to start slowly and use SkyDrive just for roaming some important documents and pictures from their Windows Phone camera roll. Knowing that most people would still have files on a remote PC that weren't available through SkyDrive, we built a new feature that allows you to "reach across" the Internet to access any file, stream videos, or view photo albums from a remote PC that is running SkyDrive on the desktop. For any remote folder or file, you can also choose to "copy to SkyDrive," so that you'll always have it across your devices.

Samsung's Board has approved the separation of LCD business

Article first published as Samsung Board has approved the Spin-off of LCD businesses and operations on Technorati.

Samsung Electronics’ Board of Directors has approved the separation of LCD businesses and operations. The separated corporation will be launched by the company as Samsung Display Company Ltd. on 1 April. This new corporation will be started with a capital of 750 billion won ($668 million).

Although, the company has come closer to the separation of the company as a new entity after board’s approval but it still needs the approval of shareholders.

The company has taken this decision as the demand of LCD products is decreasing in this era of fast technological progresses and the company wants to keep in pace with new advancements. Moreover, the supply of LCD products has also been increased by manufacturers.

Samsung is the largest TV and flat screen manufacturer and the deceleration of the sale of LCD products could affect the company most. So, the company has planned to focus on the new technologies such as Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) to maintain competitiveness.

"The spin-off will allow us to make quicker business decisions and respond to our clients' needs more swiftly," said Donggun Park, executive vice president and head of Samsung's LCD business.

"Through enhancements in business competitiveness, we will continue to provide superior products and services for the market," he added.

Time will tell that this strategy of Samsung for increasing competency and operations will work or not.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Single atom transistor

Article first published as Transistor Made of Single Atom on Technorati.

Scientists from the University of New South Wales have developed the world’s smallest transistor that is made up of a single atom.

The team of researchers precisely placed the phosphorus-31 isotope on the Silicon base in an ultra-high vacuum chamber with the help of a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) and developed a single atom transistor, which could be a better foundation for scalable quantum computing. Scientists have precisely positioned the atom, so that it must be at an effective place with reduced error margin.

“Our group has proved that it is really possible to position one phosphorus atom in a silicon environment - exactly as we need it - with near-atomic precision, and at the same time register gates,” lead author Dr. Martin Fuechsle from UNSW said.

Phosphorus-31 has been selected by the researchers as it has two possible nuclear spins and it could be an ideal isotope for solid-state quantum computing. Moreover, phosphorus and silicon would be compatible with the CMOS sensors used in processors these days.

“But this device is perfect”, says Professor Michelle Simmons, group leader and director of the ARC Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at UNSW. “This is the first time anyone has shown control of a single atom in a substrate with this level of precise accuracy.”

Single atom transistor would come in the processors in the near future as it is still a very expensive technology.

This research has been published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.