Hardware

PulChron setup (Photo courtesy ESA)

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ESA began experimenting with a new type of clock called PulChron based on pulsars. Activated at the end of November 2018, this system is based on the impulses generated by these neutron stars that spin very rapidly in extremely precise times. 18 pulsars monitored with various radio telescopes were used for the measurements, which provide extremely accurate time references for various purposes such as verifying the performance of the Galileo European navigation system’s satellites.

The DJI Inspire 1 Quadcopter (Image courtesy DJI. All rights reserved)

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The Mexican city of Ensenada has become famous in recent days because the local police declared that they have been able to arrest over 500 criminals thanks to the use of a drone in the last 4 months. According to the statistics reported, that led to an overall crime reduction by 10% overall and in particular a drop in burglaries by 30%.

A view of Summit (Photo ORNL)

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IBM and the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) announced the supercomputer Summit stating that it’s the fastest in the world. Peak performances are declared at 200 petaflops, which are eight times those of the previous ORNL supercomputer, called Titan, activated in October 2012 and for a few months the most powerful in its category. It’s a system designed for scientific applications with an eye to artificial intelligence.

IBM 50-qubit system (Photo courtesy IBM)

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IBM has announced the company’s progress in the field of quantum computing. A 20-qubit processor will be available in commercial systems with offerings within its specific IBM Q quantum systems program. Customers will be able to access its services via cloud and develop applications using the QISKit project, an open source development kit to program on quantum computers. IBM also announced the creation of a quantum processor prototype with 50 qubits.

Artist's impression of a 'flip flop' qubit in an entangled quantum state (Image courtesy Tony Melov)

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An article published in the journal “Nature Communications” describes the development of a new type of quantum computer that, according to the authors, resolves many problems with this type of computer. A team of engineers at the University of New South Wales, Australia, invented a new architecture based on flip-flop qubits that is supposed to make the production of large-scale quantum chips much simpler and cheaper.