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Researchers have written quantum code on a silicon chip for the first time And so it begins... FIONA MACDONALD 17 NOV 2015           For the first time, Australian engineers have demonstrated that they can write and manipulate the quantum version of computer code on a silicon microchip. This was done by entangling two quantum bits with the highest accuracy ever recorded, and it means that we can now start to program for the super-powerful quantum computers of the future.Engineers code regular computers using traditional bits, which can be in one of two states: 1 or 0. Together, two bits...

Businesses and enterprise customers are very excited about Windows 10, according to a new report by Forrester Research. It's weird, because big organizations are usually the last to want to adopt any new technology, let alone a whole operating system. And yet, more than 49% of enterprises responding to Forrester's survey plan on going to Windows 10 in 2016, per the report. That doesn't sound like much. Indeed, Forrester itself says that those numbers tend to be optimistic. But compared to Windows 8, which Forrester says garnered a 22% positive response to the same question in 2012, the year it...

Apple's mobile operating system iOS has not only transformed the company, but it also helped shape the mobile revolution. Image source: Apple.In no uncertain terms, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been instrumental in launching the mobile revolution. Consumers use mobile devices in ways they never could have dreamed of a decade ago, and the rise of mobile platforms created incredible new opportunities for many industries as the PC market matured.This was all made possible by the creation of iOS, which powers Apple's mobile devices. When iOS was being developed, Apple executives debated whether they should start with the iPod operating system and...

Apple's iPad Pro, which starts at $799 without the Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil. (AP Photo/Eric Rosberg) The story of computing has been one of converging more and more services into one place, as the video "Evolution of the Desk" from Harvard's School of Computing illustrates below. With so much overlap now between things you can do on a smartphone and on a desktop computer, there's been much talk of convergence between the two. Google, for instance, is widely thought to be working on bringing its mobile platform Android together with its "browser only" operating system Chrome, which is found...

Apple's record profits in the three months ended Sept. 27 were driven by strong sales of its iPhone 6 and its latest model, the iPhone 6S. Apple Inc. may not be the biggest maker of smartphones -- that distinction goes to Samsung -- but it is gobbling up almost all smartphone profits so far in 2015, according to new numbers from Canaccord Genuity. Apple took a whopping 94 percent of the total operating income of the nine top global smartphone makers in the three-month period ended in September, up from 85 percent in the year prior, according to analyst Mike...

Practical homomorphic encryption manual released As genome research - and the genomes themselves - get passed around the scientific community, the world's woken up to the security and privacy risks this can involve. A Microsoft research quintet has therefore published ways to help scientists work on genomic data while reducing the risk of data theft. The team published an informal manual to help scientists and other researchers to use the Simple Encrypted Arithmetic Library (SEAL). Homomorphic encryption is a technique in which software can operate on encrypted data without decrypting it. This would let hospitals and labs to work on...

Same name, very different results If you held back on installing November's Patch Tuesday updates last week after Microsoft fumbled an Outlook patch, it's apparently safe to go back in the water. Many IT managers and normal folks held off on last week's patching cycle after one Microsoft fix - KB 3097877 - broke several versions of Outlook. The error came in how the software handled fonts, and resulted in the email client crashing as soon as some emails were scrolled through. "We have re-released KB 3097877 for Windows 7 to address the Outlook difficulties that some customers experienced. We...

I have a Sony Vaio laptop. I would like to add a Bluetooth device - speaker. My model evidently is not bluetooth ready. Is there software that will make it so? My research has reveled that there are adapters that come on CD. But my CD on this machine is not functional.

Microsoft has officially buried its Zune music service, though it was already a distant memory for a lot of music fans. The Zune music service was discontinued on Sunday and users are now no longer able to stream or download content. Instead, Microsoft encourages users to try out their 3-year-old Groove Music, a digital music streaming service which boasts a music catalog of over 38 million tracks. Zune device owners are not affected and can continue to listen to and transfer music without a problem. Microsoft launched its Zune portable player and music service in 2006 as a response to...

'Threshold 2', Microsoft's massive Windows 10 update has brought lots of very positive changes... But unfortunately it has also been dogged by familiar controversy. Nasty Surprise #1: The 44% Bug Users have been reporting installation issues ... it gets stuck at the 44% mark ... In the official Windows Forum, Microsoft explained it may be to do with SD card issues: "We've observed that some devices that have an SD bus with an SD card inserted while installing the Windows 10 November update will stop responding at 44%, and we are currently investigating the issue." Nasty Surprise #2: Deleting And...

Why worry about the desktop when you've conquered everything else? Let's just get this out of the way: this isn't the year of Linux on the desktop. That year will probably never arrive. But Linux has gotten just about everywhere else, and the Linux community can take a bow for making that happen. Android, based on the Linux kernel, is so prevalent on mobile devices that it makes the longstanding desktop quest seem irrelevant. But beyond Android there are a number of places where you can find Linux that are truly odd and intriguing, and by "places" we mean both...

US-based iPower Technologies has discovered that body cameras sold by Martel Electronics come pre-infected with the Conficker worm (Win32/Conficker.B!inf).The specific line of body cameras iPower tested, is the same one sold to police forces around the US, used by street patrol officers and SWAT team members in their operations.The model, Frontline Body Camera, is attached to an officer's chest and works by recording his activities on video, his location using a GPS tracker, and taking regular snapshots as images.The camera records data on an internal drive, from where the officer or his supervisors can download it onto a computer via...

UK MPs are investigating what it will cost ISPs to meet government proposals to log where Britons go online. The House of Commons Science and Technology committee is looking at whether gathering data on net-using citizens is even feasible. It also wants to look into the potential impact that logging browsing will have on how people use the web. snip In a notice announcing the inquiry, the Committee said it wanted to find out if it was possible for ISPs to meet the IP Bill's requirements. The text of the Bill asks ISPs to log where people go but...

What Goes Up Friday, 13 November 2015 This piece by Bryan Clark for TheNextWeb caught my eye last weekend — “We've Reached — Maybe Passed — Peak Apple: Why the Narrative Needs to Change”: Last month, Apple's latest earnings call announced its "most successful year ever." The numbers were reported, the stories were spun and Wall Street basically anointed Apple the god of capitalism. They're all wrong. Apple wasn’t wrong — fiscal 2015 was Apple's most successful year ever, by the objective measures of both revenue and profit. I suppose you can decide to define “most successful year ever” in...

There are so many types of ad-blocking downloads, software, etc.....Can anyone share a good experience that they have had with how to block ads?

No driver? No ticket. That, at least, was the result when a police officer pulled over one of Google's self-driving cars Thursday in Mountain View, California. The car wasn't speeding. On the contrary, it was driving too slowly -- 24 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone, according to the Mountain View Police Department -- with traffic apparently backing up behind it. pic.twitter.com/3tKhtuxxr8 -- David E. Weekly (@dweekly) November 12, 2015 "As the officer approached the slow moving car he realized it was a Google Autonomous Vehicle," a police department post said. Which is to say that no one...

Microsoft has released an update it says is the first major release for Windows 10. Redmond said the new version of Windows 10 would offer better performance and compatibility with third-party hardware. "With this update, there are improvements in all aspects of the platform and experience, including thousands of partners updating their device drivers and applications for greater Windows 10 compatibility," wrote Microsoft Windows and Devices executive vice president Terry Myerson. "Windows 10 also starts rolling out to Xbox One today, and select mobile phones soon." Microsoft is also courting enterprise customers with the addition of two new services aimed...

Set in a post-nuclear apocalyptic world, Fallout 4 is one of the biggest and most hotly-anticipated games of the year. ... Experts from the American Chemical Society have released a video explaining the basics of survival in a world riddled with radiation - and it is even harder than fiction would have us believe. ... The video explains that in order to protect themselves, people need to be exposed to the alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays from the ionising radiation for the least amount of time possible. In particular, the key to survival is three-fold - time, distance,...

... Microsoft has released a major update to Windows 10, claiming the latest version makes the operating system suitable for deployment in enterprise environments. Code named "threshold 2", the update for the operating system also contains multiple, system-wide improvements and bug fixes, similar to service packs for prior versions of Windows. Also known as build 10586, threshold 2 was selected as the final version after testing by volunteers in the Windows Insider program starting early November.

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