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Blueprints drawn up for quantum computer RAM - tech - 21 August
In the fundamentally fuzzy world of quantum mechanics, it can be difficult to keep clear memories, and that could be a problem for future quantum computers. Now three physicists in Italy and the US have proposed a method for retrieving quantum information from memory that should make total quantum recall more reliable. Quantum computers have the potential to do some kinds of calculation with unprecedented speed, as small-scale demonstrations have confirmed. However, to perform most of these calculations effectively these machines will eventually need to access something resembling random access memory (RAM) - a large store of quantum information that can be selectively accessed.There are many strange religions in this mixed-up, modern world — Discordianism, Pastafarianism, the Church of the Subgenius — but one of strangest and most popular is the Cult of the New. People will pay more than twice as much to see a first-run movie compared to seeing it in a second-run theater or renting it and watching it at home. They’ll pay $50 for a videogame that will clearly be a $20 “greatest hits” game before too long.
Alt Text: New Cult Spares Members From Early Adopters’ Pain | Un
Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
At the age of 40, King Gillette was a frustrated inventor, a bitter anticapitalist, and a salesman of cork-lined bottle caps. It was 1895, and despite ideas, energy, and wealthy parents, he had little to show for his work. He blamed the evils of market competition.
169 diggs digg “To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.” So goes an old quip attributed to Paul Ehrlich . He was right. One of the defining things about computers is that they–or, more specifically, the people who program them–get so many things so very wrong. Hence the need for error messages, which have been around nearly as long as computers themselves..
The Thirteen Greatest Error Messages of All Time | Technologizer
What Do Women Want? Less Pink, More Tech, "Lady Geek"
Bring on the tech gear, but don't make it girly: That's what women want, according to a survey released today. Just 9 percent of the fair sex want products that "look feminine," like a pink Playstation or Hello Kitty keyboards . The remaining 91 percent seek something sleek and sophisticated, more boardroom than teenage bedroom. The data comes from a study, done by the advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, of 750 British women age 24 to 45. The agency says its study indicates it's time for tech companies to go beyond the pink ghetto. "There are clearly some smart, forward-thinking marketers in the industry, but for some reason, when it comes to targeting women, things haven't moved on," said Belinda Parmar, planning director at Saatchi.
Data stored in live neurons - tech - 08 June 2007 - New Scientis
In a major incident, tweets and retweets can contain precious data that could help the emergency services make the most of their rescue resources FIELD NOTES: 10:00 10 April 2012 The vast undertaking that is ITER – a reactor that promises to set humanity on a path toward limitless energy through nuclear fusion – is finally taking shapeA light bulb glows whilst receiving power from 2m away A clean-cut vision of a future freed from the rat's nest of cables needed to power today's electronic gadgets has come one step closer to reality. "There is nothing in this that would have prevented them inventing this 10 or even 20 years ago," commented Professor Sir John Pendry of Imperial College London who has seen the experiments. "But I think there is an issue of time.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Wireless energy promise powers up
The requirements translation challenge --- can you meet it?
By Dr. Joe Marasco Two thirds of all software projects undertaken this year will fail to meet user expectations (Donald Firesmith, The Business Case for Requirements Engineering , Software Engineering Institute, 2003) – they will either be late, over budget, delivered wanting in some crucial dimension, or cancelled outright. Rework is a key factor in this equation.
Illustration: Dan Page The lowly browser is becoming the most powerful piece of software on your computer. Despite the promises of chip makers and PC manufacturers, a Web application like Gmail running on a massive server farm thousands of miles away can often be faster and more reliable than the best client-based program. Developers are pushing browsers to their limits by creating even better online alternatives to desktop apps, ranging from spreadsheets to instant messaging tools to full-blown operating systems.
PC World - The Web's Most Useful Sites
Microsoft's Vista isn't compatible with SQL Server - D
(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- If you followed Microsoft in the 1990s, you knew it as a company that deftly moved from strength to strength, leveraging its dominance in one area of software to command other parts of the tech business. That company's long gone, folks. The latest evidence that Microsoft ( Charts ) has lost its Midas Touch?
So you’ve heard all the hype about Windows Vista, but wonder what it means for you. Here’s the definitive guide on how Microsoft’s Windows Vista stacks up against XP: XP: In the original Windows XP, and with the first service pack or SP1, both versions still in use today, Windows XP has a built-in firewall that gave relatively good protection against hackers breaking into your computer. The 2nd service pack, or SP2, improved the firewall to protect you from people trying to get it, and bad programs trying to get access out to the Internet, but it is still considered relatively basic compared with commercial offerings. Anyone serious about security should replace it with a good third party firewall or Internet security suite. All versions of Windows XP are also able to be set to download Windows updates automatically.
Definitive guide: Windows Vista and XP head to head
And snprintf() instead of sprintf(), although nothing will help you if no-one has told you how big the buffer you are copying into actually is. But even that omission would be down to bad functional design / programmer error. Exactly. But then that's the reason when you write a function that takes a pointer to a buffer as an argument you always require that the caller pass in the length.