Behold, The Quantum Compass

via an Impact Lab post, in which, the astounding science of Imperial College London and Glasgow, Scotland, UK based M Squared combine for the possibility that we may soon possess the capability to arrive at our desired waypoints and caches through the utilization of a Quantum Compass - without the need for a satellite based positioning-system to enlighten our in-built curiosity for knowledge-of-place.

Are the days of GLONASS and GPS over? Is this merely an appropriation of geolocation processing with the assistance of a quantum accelerometer channeling data elements to a fundamentally stranger - in the quantum vernacular - platform - not subject to the vagaries of nation or space-borne detritus and political machinations? You be the judge.

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"When the atoms are ultra-cold we have to use quantum mechanics to describe how they move, and this allows us to make what we call an atom interferometer", said Dr Joseph Cotter, a member of the Research Staff at The Centre for Cold Matter at Imperial College, London, UK.

Quantum Recommendation Problem Obsoleted →

via Kevin Hartnett, writing for Simon's Foundation Quanta Magazine, notes - An 18 year old man from Texas (in the fall, Ewin will attend the University of Washington graduate program in Computer Science) has obsoleted the so-called quantum 'recommendation problem'. Eighteen year old Ewin Tang has published a paper entitled 'A Quantum-Inspired Classical Algorithm for Recommendation Systems' detailing the problems obsolescence (and is today's selection for a Must Read recommendation).

Well Done, Mr. Tang, Well Done.

Quantum of Saturday →

via Philip Ball writing at Quanta Magazine - the web-based publication of the Simons Foundation - comes this superb piece on the current state of quantum computation, and the - apparently - rather long road ahead. Certainly, a Saturday Must Read!

Quantum Systems, The Embiggenment →

via the clearly motivated John Timmer, writing at the equally hard working Ars Technica organization, comes this quantum sciences focused prose, detailing the embiggenment of same. Todays MustRead in Quantum Science.

Lightly... Squeezed →

News via the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of NIST physicists efforts to cool down a component has yeilded an unexpected result. The effort utilized squeezed light (microwaves within an electromagnetic cavity, if you will) to cool the apparatus below the theoretical limit, in this case, below the so-called quantum limit.

Google Creates Quantum Chip →

News, via Wired's Robert McMillan, of trouble in paradise. In this case, an error prone computational quantum platform the search leviathan Google Inc. (NasdqGS: GOOG) is running, down yonder in Mountain View...

"The crux of the problem is a phenomenon called bit-flipping. This happens when some kind of interference—cosmic rays, for example—causes the bits stored in memory to “switch state”—to jump from a 0 to a 1 or vice versa. On a PC or a server, error correction is relatively easy." - via Wired's Robert McMillan

• Image depicts a D-WAVE branded quantum computational device