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.

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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.

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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."


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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.

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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.”

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