computing

13 Stories

Queen Pardons WWII Codebreaker

Alan Turing committed suicide after gross indecency conviction

(Newser) - Alan Turing, widely hailed as the father of modern computing, helped the Allies win World War II by cracking Nazi Germany's Enigma code—but after the war, Britain repaid him by persecuting him for his homosexuality, leading to a conviction for gross indecency in 1952, followed by chemical castration...

World's Fastest Supercomputer Still American

Cray system known as 'Titan' takes top spot

(Newser) - The US still holds the crown for fastest supercomputer, but it's now a Cray XK7 system known as Titan that has overtaken the previous titleholder, the IBM Sequoia . US and German researchers found that Titan, funded by the Department of Energy and housed at the US government's Oak...

US Retakes Fastest Supercomputer Crown

IBM's Sequoia outperforms Japanese record holder

(Newser) - America can once again boast that it is home to the world's fastest supercomputer. IBM's Sequoia system knocked Japan's K Computer into second place after clocking in at a staggering 16.32 "petaflops"—that's 16 quadrillion calculations per second, reports the Wall Street Journal...

Greenpeace Slams Apple's 'Dirty' iCloud

Company disputes Greenpeace's data center figures

(Newser) - Apple is the worst offender among tech giants relying on "dirty energy" like coal to fuel gigantic data centers, according to a scathing Greenpeace report released this week. The report also slammed Amazon and Microsoft for excessive energy use, while praising Facebook, Google, and Yahoo for their efforts to...

Computer Cursor Can Be Controlled by Thought

Study participants moved it by thinking of sounds oo, ah, ee, and eh

(Newser) - Advances in mind-reading technology have made it possible for people with disabilities to control a computer cursor using only their thoughts, say Washington University researchers. The team has demonstrated that people can move a cursor around a computer screen and "click" by thinking of a particular vowel sound—in...

'Citizen Scientists' Find Rare Star

Spare computing power donated to sift through observatory data

(Newser) - Three regular people who volunteered to put their idle home computers to work crunching scientific data in off-hours have been credited with making a major discovery in deep space. The "citizen scientists"—two in Iowa and one in Germany—downloaded and processed the data that found a disrupted...

Digital Spew Edges Into Zettabyte Zone

World output set to break mega barrier

(Newser) - The flood of digital information produced by the world is outgrowing even the language described it. "Zettabyte"—one million million gigabytes, or enough information to fill 75 billion iPads—has now entered the lexicon, and the world's digital output is expected to pass the 1 zettabyte mark for...

Through Sheer Power, Google Translate Gets It Right

Similar programs use 1B words, while Google plugs in 100B+

(Newser) - Score one for Google’s “don’t be evil” side as Web surfers reap the benefits of its excellent translation program—thanks to the sheer force of Google's web dominance. Machine translation is a particularly tricky computer problem that programmers now agree is most easily solved by feeding massive...

Après Le Deluge: French Battle Anglo Terms in Web Age

Experts struggle to create equivalents for terms like 'cloud computing'

(Newser) - Defenders of the French language are fighting a rear-guard action against a flood of Anglo-Saxon computing terms. In a process that lags far behind advances in technology, experts are tasked with finding French equivalents for new computing technology. The terms must then be passed by a panel of linguists and...

Nokia Challenges Apple With 3G Netbook

(Newser) - Nokia is charging into the mobile computing market with its first netbook, PC World reports. The phone company’s Booklet 3G features 3G connectivity for Internet access and packs a healthy 12 hours of battery life. The tiny laptop—10 inches—runs Windows and has Nokia’s Ovi mobile apps...

Google Quietly Conquers With Irresistible Apps

Columnist worries about being so tied to giant, but everything just works so well

(Newser) - Despite near-total lack of marketing, Google finds its way into Web lovers’ hearts with an irresistible bundle of applications. “Having grown up in the vapor trail of the ’60s, I learned to be wary of large, centralized organizations,” David Carr writes in the New York Times. “...

Quantum Internet Gets Closer
Quantum Internet
Gets Closer
Apr 15, 2008 12:40 PM CDT

Quantum Internet Gets Closer

New kind of Net would be automatically secure

(Newser) - A recent quantum computing breakthrough is a step towards creating a quantum Internet—which would be "automatically secure," a researcher told Technology Review. A Northwestern University professor has created a fundamental element of a quantum computer, a quantum logic gate, within an optical fiber, where previous gates used...

New Electronics Can Stretch, Fold

Bendable circuits perform as well as rigid circuitry

(Newser) - New research showing that it’s possible to make stretchable, bendable complex electrical circuits could open the door to wearable computers and to health-monitoring systems that can be implanted, Technology Review reports. Previous bendable circuitry was too slow for complex computing, but the new circuits, of ultra-thin silicon on plastic...

13 Stories