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Quantum Computing Gets Five Photons Closer Link Quantum computers, which use attributes of quantum particles like atoms and photons to represent data, promise to solve certain very large problems many orders of magnitude faster than is possible using today's computers. The challenge is being able to manipulate particles well enough to carry out computing. A key step is being able to entangle five particles, which would make it possible to check computations for errors and teleport quantum information within and between computers. Researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China, the University of Innsbruck in Austria, and the University of Heidelberg in Germany have entangled five photons. The researchers used the five-photon entanglement process to carry out open-destination teleportation, which makes it possible to transmit information to any one of several processors within a quantum computer or nodes in a quantum network. Quantum teleportation is akin to faxing a document and in the process destroying the original. It will be more than a decade before the technology is practical, according to the researchers. [ permanent link to this entry ]
'Marathon Mice' Created to Run Farther, Longer Link Researchers have genetically engineered mice that can run farther and longer than their naturally bred brethren, bringing the "genetic doping" of elite athletes a small step closer to reality. The gene engineered in these mice essentially mimics exercise: Researchers say it conferred endurance and prevented the modified mice from becoming obese - even when they were kept inactive and fed a high-fat diet. Instead of improving times by fractions of a second, the genetically enhanced marathon mice ran twice as far and nearly twice as long as naturally bred rodents. Many predict that steroids, growth hormones and other drugs and chemicals that cheating athletes take to shave the smallest sliver of a second off their times will soon seem quaint - replaced by hard-to-detect genetic engineering, which could become commonplace as soon as the Beijing Olympics four years from now. [ permanent link to this entry ]
New Vending Machine Offers Cashless Purchases Link Coca-Cola has developed a new Cmode automatic vending machine (Cmo2) as a next-generation automatic vending machine that supports NTT DoCoMo Inc's FeliCa-enabled mobile phones. The Cmo2 is an advanced version of Coca-Cola's first Cmode vending machine (Cmo), which enables cashless purchasing of Coca-Cola products by nearing an i-mode mobile phone to the vending machine. The Cmo2 has added an interface that supports a contactless IC chip "i-mode FeliCa" in a DoCoMo mobile phone. The Cmo, its predecessor type, supports two-dimensional bar code and infrared communication. The Cmo2 can offer more convenience for the purchaser to obtain a product by a shortened delivery from selecting the merchandise, settling the payment to receiving the merchandise in 0.5 seconds. The purchaser can also play video game after the purchase using the LCD on the vending machine. With the new vending machine, the machine owner can set automatic discount sales during any designated time hours, automatic notification function when the products are sold out, the machine goes out of order, and so on. This will provide the owners with high added-value, the company explained. Coca-Cola System will start installing the new machines in Japan from September 2004. [ permanent link to this entry ]
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