http://www.osnews.com/story/15768/Theory_on_Particle_Spin_Brings_Quantum_Computing_Closer Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:09:25 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?160468 http://osnews.com/thread?160468 They managed to spinpolarize electrons without outside magnets and without accelerating the electrons close to light speed so that an electric field "looks" to the electron like a magnetic field.

Thats awsome! Fri, 08 Sep 2006 12:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (gustl) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?160495 http://osnews.com/thread?160495 Absolutely!
From what I understood they use L-shaped gallium arsenide (a semiconductor mainly used for high speed circuits) to control the spin.
Maybe we can roughly compare this to water flowing around a corner and getting some spin.
Ok, vague picture but everything concerning QM is vague

I'm not sure if quantum computing would cause more harm or good. It means not just that processors get faster but that a complete new range of problems (NP-hard) becomes solvable because quantum superpositions allow to try all alternatives simultaniously.
This would probably render encryption useless except, of course, quantum encryption which alerts you when a third person is listening. Fri, 08 Sep 2006 13:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (RandomGuy) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?160594 http://osnews.com/thread?160594 "We believe we've discovered a much simpler way for inducing spin polarization," he added. "We don't need a big magnet. The only requirement in our case is an electrical current in the sample, which is much easier to achieve than putting the sample in a magnetic coil. For an electrical current, you only need two contacts."

I can't help but compare this with the transition from vacuum tubes to transistors. Back in 1947 Bell found out that you don't need a heater and a vacuum, you can make electrons tunnel through a PN juction barrier. I wonder what advances these new "transistors" will bring. Fri, 08 Sep 2006 19:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (KenJackson) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?160634 http://osnews.com/thread?160634 ...how small the iPod will get? iPod "Nano" will have new meaning. Fri, 08 Sep 2006 22:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Tuishimi) Comments