Intrinsitivity

Superconducting Qubits Tie the NOT Gate

Researchers are creeping closer to a small quantum computer built from loops of superconducting metal. A team has demonstrated a key ingredient of such a computer by using one superconducting loop to control the information stored on a second. Combined with other recent advances, the result may pave the way for devices of double the size in the next year or two—closer to what other quantum computing candidates have achieved, says physicist Hans Mooij of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Imagine what this means for mental augmentation and encryption.

Data stored in live neurons

Information has been stored in live neurons for the first time, bringing closer the creation of "cyborg" computer chips that combine electronic circuits with human cells.

Networks of cultured neurons are known to spontaneously fire in specific patterns. Researchers have previously attempted to program these neural networks with new patterns, representing bits of information, by electrically stimulating individual cells. However, such zapping disrupts their spontaneous firing patterns, and for a network to successfully store information new firing patterns must be imprinted without erasing the old.

Now Itay Baruchi and Eshel Ben-Jacob of Tel Aviv University in Israel have taught new firing patterns to a network of neurons by targeting specific points of the network with a chemical called picrotoxin. The new patterns lasted for up to two days without harming the pre-existing firing patterns (Physical Review Letters E, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.75.050901). "You can think of it like a Christmas tree with lights that flicker," says Ben-Jacob. "We imprinted another pattern of lights on top of the original."

Many believe that complex patterns of neuronal firing are templates for memory, which the brain uses when storing information. Imprinting such "memories" on artificial neural networks provides a potential way to develop cyborg chips, says Ben-Jacob. These would be useful for monitoring biological systems like the brain and blood since, being human, they would respond to the same chemicals.

I find it very, how shall I say, unsettling that (1) someone can argue over rights to certain bit and pixel configurations and (2) can be taken seriously by a judge. We unfortunately have to adjust to this way of thinking, however, and clarify intellectual property rights in cyberspace, because we will see more and more intellectual property lawsuits as time goes on.

Second Life "land" dispute moves offline to federal courtroom

A virtual land dispute in Second Life will be resolved in federal court after a judge’s ruling. A lawsuit filed in May of 2006 by Pennsylvania attorney Marc Bragg accused Linden Lab and its CEO Philip Rosedale of wrongfully seizing his virtual land and unilaterally shutting down his Second Life account—intellectual property that Bragg says is worth thousands of (real-life) dollars. Linden Lab filed two motions to dismiss the suit, arguing that Bragg came into possession of his land wrongfully, but the Pennsylvania judge denied those motions.