Is There a Looming Digital Divide With Quantum Technology?
What would happen if only a handful of companies and governments controlled access to the power of quantum computers, demonstrated this month by Google’s breakthrough quantum chip? Our continuing series on quantum ethics examines the race to develop the technology, its cost and complexity that exclude most of the world, and the growing movement for responsible quantum research and innovation.
Growing Up Online: Evolving Protections for Children in the Digital World
Concerns about children’s digital media use are growing globally, with research highlighting risks that include social media dependency, gaming addiction, online harassment, and data privacy issues. We explore findings from global studies, expert recommendations, and strategies from organizations like WHO, OECD, and UNICEF, aimed at creating safer, empowering digital environments for children.
Will We Find a Universal Memory for All Physical Scales, From the Tiny Quantum to Giant Stars, in the Geometry of Curves?
In the continuing search for a theory unifying general relativity’s gravity with quantum mechanics, evidence suggests the universe retains a record of events in the geometry of curves that preserve the gravitational consequences of interactions from the tiny quantum to massive stars. We survey 30 years of discoveries pointing to the possibility of decoding probabilities at any scale.
Giant Steps Have Been Taken Toward Our Quantum Computing Future
With its latest chip named Willow, Google’s quantum computer performed in five minutes a calculation that would require 10 septillion years on a supercomputer. The company’s breakthrough in maintaining coherent quantum circuits, together with recent milestone achievements by Quantinuum in logical qubits and quantum teleportation, signal the rapid approach of our full-scale quantum computing future.
Editorial Perspectives
Blog
Protecting Sensitive Financial Information From Data Brokers is a Crucial Government Responsibility
The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is at risk of being eliminated, along with its proposals to bring data brokers under the same rules that govern credit bureaus. Relaxing financial regulations exposes consumers to risks from the buying and selling of their sensitive financial data, including fraud and blackmail by bad actors. To safeguard consumers and prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial collapse, government's role in financial regulation is crucial.
Blog
A Five-Year-Old’s Challenge to Free-Speech Absolutism
By accepting no limits to what they say, free-speech absolutists who broadcast their views with the power and global reach of technology fail to consider the effects of their words on children. Without life experience, kids are defenceless against lies and vulgarities spread far and wide by powerful or popular people. Every adult's responsibility is to protect the children, and it's time that children be brought into the free speech debate.
Blog
Trust is Fragile: Google’s Antitrust Loss and the Global Windows Failure in July are Warnings to AI Investors About the Future Value of Trust
The recent antitrust case lost by Google and another antitrust action now being heard, together with the global failure of Microsoft Windows from faulty code in third-party software highlight our reliance on AI. They also underscore the extent that AI's future value, currently trading for trillions of dollars daily, depends on the trust of its human users.
In Focus
Major Advances in Quantum Memory Make Quantum Networks Increasingly Probable. What Comes Next?
Major advances are being made in creating a quantum memory capable of storing the massive volumes of data that a fully-functioning quantum computer will produce. It will remove a major barrier to the networking of quantum computers, the next step in multiplying the power of the machines. How soon can the infrastructure be developed, and under what rules will the network operate?
From Stellar Clusters to Cosmic Horizons: Telescopes are Mapping the Edge of the Observable Universe
Mapping astronomical regions gives new insights into the role of massive, dying stars in stellar evolution. With telescopes like Hubble and JWST, we can study distant supernovae and understand how old stars shape new ones. However, the finite speed of light and the universe’s expansion limit our view, leaving vast regions beyond reach and raising questions about what lies beyond our cosmic horizon.
Negative Time: Another Curious Wrinkle in the Always Surprising Quantum Universe
Can time run in reverse? How could light defy the resistance of particles it encounters, energizing them without losing any of its own energy, and seem to exit a cloud of atoms before entering? Experiments confirm the surprising results, raising more questions about the curious the quantum universe and, possibly, new methods for maintaining stable quantum circuits.
Podcasts and Webcasts
Election Monitoring in the Technological Era, with Dr. Ian Batista
Dr. Adio Dinika on The Human Data Workers Who Make AI Possible
Dr. Federico Carollo on the Intriguing Present and Future Potential of Time Crystals
The Quantum Record is a non-profit journal of philosophy, science, technology, and time.
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Latest Quantum Computing
Giant Steps Have Been Taken Toward Our Quantum Computing Future
With its latest chip named Willow, Google’s quantum computer performed in five minutes a calculation that would require 10 septillion years on a supercomputer. The company’s breakthrough in maintaining coherent quantum circuits, together with recent milestone achievements by Quantinuum in logical qubits and quantum teleportation, signal the rapid approach of our full-scale quantum computing future.
Major Advances in Quantum Memory Make Quantum Networks Increasingly Probable. What Comes Next?
Major advances are being made in creating a quantum memory capable of storing the massive volumes of data that a fully-functioning quantum computer will produce. It will remove a major barrier to the networking of quantum computers, the next step in multiplying the power of the machines. How soon can the infrastructure be developed, and under what rules will the network operate?
What’s on the Horizon for Error-Free Quantum Computing, Expected Within Five Years?
In the race to eliminate errors in quantum computer circuits, Quantinuum’s September announcement of plans to develop a fully fault-tolerant machine by 2029 raises the bar for competitors. With rapid progress in error reduction being made, we survey the latest in differing quantum computer designs and some of the first applications for a fully functioning machine, possibly even improving controversial large language model technology.
Featured Science News
The Big Ring: Is the Newly Found Cosmic Megastructure the End for the Cosmological Principle?
The discovery of a colossal ring-shaped structure in space, known as the Big Ring, challenges the cosmological principle, a foundational concept in astrophysics. This finding reinforces questions about the completeness of current cosmological models and hints at the need for a potential overhaul of our understanding of the evolution of the universe.
Latest Philosophy of Technology
Is There a Looming Digital Divide With Quantum Technology?
What would happen if only a handful of companies and governments controlled access to the power of quantum computers, demonstrated this month by Google’s breakthrough quantum chip? Our continuing series on quantum ethics examines the race to develop the technology, its cost and complexity that exclude most of the world, and the growing movement for responsible quantum research and innovation.
Growing Up Online: Evolving Protections for Children in the Digital World
Concerns about children’s digital media use are growing globally, with research highlighting risks that include social media dependency, gaming addiction, online harassment, and data privacy issues. We explore findings from global studies, expert recommendations, and strategies from organizations like WHO, OECD, and UNICEF, aimed at creating safer, empowering digital environments for children.
Legal Perils and Protections for Online Consumers are Rapidly Evolving
Consumers don’t expect that clicking “Agree” to an online agreement with a food delivery service or cable network could result in the loss of some fundamental legal rights, and yet that’s what’s happening. We explore the often bewildering nature of lengthy user agreements that few can read or understand, and what’s being done (or not done) to protect online customers.
Latest Technology Over Time
The Fascinating History of the Computer, from ENIAC, Vacuum Tubes and Transistors, to Microchips
We trace computing history from ENIAC, the first computer in 1947, from vacuum tubes to transistors, to the development of microchips that put far greater computing power in our our phones than the giant ENIAC had. With the world at the brink of a quantum computing revolution, what lessons can we draw from our computing history to shape the best possible future with our next technological leap ?
Ancient Roman Concrete: A Technology Ahead of Its Time
The Colosseum and Pantheon stand witness to the knowledge and skill behind ancient Roman concrete-making technology. We look at the history of concrete from then to now, and take you into the Pantheon to explore the marvels that ancient Romans accomplished with concrete.
The Mystery of the Ancient Roman Dodecahedrons
What was the purpose of these curious dodecahedrons, discovered in the northern parts of the ancient Roman Empire? Why does no record exist to explain their use and manufacture? We review the intriguing possibilities, but more detective work is needed to uncover the truth of this ancient technology.
Latest Science News
Will We Find a Universal Memory for All Physical Scales, From the Tiny Quantum to Giant Stars, in the Geometry of Curves?
In the continuing search for a theory unifying general relativity’s gravity with quantum mechanics, evidence suggests the universe retains a record of events in the geometry of curves that preserve the gravitational consequences of interactions from the tiny quantum to massive stars. We survey 30 years of discoveries pointing to the possibility of decoding probabilities at any scale.
Latest Telescopes Bring a Surprisingly Different Early Universe Into Focus. What’s Next, After Discoveries of the Oldest Galaxy and ‘Little Red Dots’?
Combined data from the JWST and Chandra X-ray Observatory reveal an early universe that’s not what we thought it was. With the discovery of a black hole drawing in matter from the oldest galaxy 40 times faster than what we thought was possible, to the “little red dots” of galaxies far more compact than what we have seen, what other surprises lie ahead with more powerful telescopes now coming online?
Negative Time: Another Curious Wrinkle in the Always Surprising Quantum Universe
Can time run in reverse? How could light defy the resistance of particles it encounters, energizing them without losing any of its own energy, and seem to exit a cloud of atoms before entering? Experiments confirm the surprising results, raising more questions about the curious the quantum universe and, possibly, new methods for maintaining stable quantum circuits.