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This week, Google announced a breakthrough that could prove its quantum computer is actually using quantum mechanics. When researchers gave the D-Wave 2X a carefully crafted test problem, the 1,000-qubit computer solved it 100,000,000 times faster than a classical computer could. Quite a few tech giants and government organizations are investing in quantum computing. And many of them, including Google, NASA, and Lockheed Martin, are working with the commercial quantum computers built by D-Wave. The idea is that these devices can harness the counterintuitive effects of quantum mechanics to solve problems faster than conventional computers, which could potentially improve artificial...

In light of the approaching and also current Jewish holiday season..for those you that need an Airing of Grievances today..please post away..

Right after Microsoft releasing MS-Linux, a few years ago I would have said the next most unlikely thing for Microsoft to do would be to offer a Linux certification. Guess what? They are.Yes, there's now a joint Microsoft Linux certification. Who would have imagined this even a year ago?On December 9, Microsoft released a Linux certification: Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) Linux on Azure. You know what's even more amazing? Microsoft created this certifcation with the help of the The Linux Foundation. Maybe dogs and cats can live together! This important step in broadening the technology integration between Microsoft and...

The original launch of Apple Maps was far from a rousing success. Though Apple may have initially been hoping to give Google a run for its money, the first iteration of Apple Maps was famously plagued by bugs and laughably inaccurate mapping directions. Compounding matters was that Apple Maps’ feature set at the time didn’t even include transit directions, thus relegating it to more of a curiosity or second-option than a legit contender to Google’s throne. But over time, Apple has quietly but steadily improved both the usability and reliability of Apple Maps. And with the recent launch of transit direction support in...

Number of new problems rising, says Symantec The number of iOS threats discovered this year has more than doubled,from three in 2014 to seven so far in 2015, according to Symantec, with jailbroken devices being the focus of the majority of threats.Of the 13 iOS threats documented by the technology security company in total, nine can only infect jailbroken devices. Mac OS X threats are also on the rise, at least historically, according to the security giant. The number of new Mac OS X threats emerging is increasing year-on-year, rising by 15 per cent in 2014, according to Symantec.This followed...

A leading Democratic senator will seek legislation requiring the ability to "pierce" through encryption. The potential bill would allow American law enforcement to read protected communications with a court order. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that she would seek a bill that would give police armed with a warrant based on probable cause the ability “to look into an encrypted Web." "I have concern about a PlayStation that my grandchildren might use," she said, "and a predator getting on the other end, and talking to them, and it's all encrypted. I think there really...

The Apple Watch is quickly becoming the dominant wearable.Photo: David Pierini/Cult of Mac Didn't think the Apple Watch would catch on? Not everyone agrees, especially analysts who study sales projections. Cupertino is on track to sell 21 million watches and rake in about $8.4 billion in revenue in the first 12 months of the Apple Watch, according to one of the hottest Apple analysts around. Not bad for a company that entered the wearables game late. The projections come from Asymco analyst Horace Dediu, who presented his findings at the Glance conference in San Francisco. The conference is headlined by...

Browser support will be running out for most users on January 12 Microsoft is advising Windows users to update their browsers ahead of a new policy that will see some versions of Internet Explorer no longer supported. The Redmond software giant said that beginning January 12, 2016, it will only support the newest version of its browser available in each operating system. "The newest Internet Explorer offers improved security, increased performance, better backward compatibility, and support for the modern technologies that power today's websites and services," Microsoft said. "Microsoft encourages customers to upgrade and stay up-to-date on the latest browser...

Apple devices are becoming an integral part of today's enterprise environment, with nearly all enterprise IT professionals saying that their internal teams provide support for Mac, iPhone and iPad devices.This is among the findings of a survey amongst IT professionals by Apple device management company JAMF Software. It shows that 96 percent of teams support Macs, 84 percent iPhones and 81 percent iPads. The survey shows that user preference is the number one reason for the increased adoption of Mac (81 percent) and iOS devices (84 percent). As organizations continue to implement user choice programs, more and more employees are...

Some of the biggest names in the security software business have been compromised by a serious flaw that could allow a hacker to use the commercial security code to infiltrate computers. In March, researchers at security firm enSilo found a serious flaw in popular free antivirus engine AVG Internet Security 2015. They found that the software was allocating memory for read, write, and execute (RWX) permissions in a predictable address that an attacker could use to inject code into a target system. enSilo got in touch with AVG and the flaw was fixed within a couple of days. But the...

Not content to have Cortana controlling Windows Mobile, Microsoft has released a toned-down version of its personal assistant tool for iOS and Android handsets. Redmond said that Cortana will run in a diminished capacity on the Apple and Google smartphone OSs, but will still allow users to link up their handsets with Windows PCs to sync and automate tasks. "Cortana was created to be a truly personal digital assistant - available on the go, no matter where or when you need help, and on whatever device you carry," wrote Cortana group program manager Marcus Ash. "That's why it's important to...

The internet's root servers came under a concerted distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack last week that effectively knocked three of the 13 critical pillars of the internet offline for several hours. The attack came just days before the Janet academic network received a similar DDoS attack. According to a first analysis of the root server attack, published by the root server operators on Tuesday, the attack occurred on November 30, 2015 between 06:50 and 09:30 UTC and then again the next day for an hour. Many, but not all, of the root servers received roughly five million queries per...

The actual problem that computer scientists threw at the D-Wave Two is pretty esoteric. To oversimplify it, they asked the machine to pick the optimum choice out of a large jumble of information with nearly 1,000 variables. Such optimization problems, which involve weighing multiple choices against each other, should be far, far easier for quantum computers to crunch. That's because the basis of quantum computation, the qubit, uses the odd physics of quantum mechanic to hold information as a zero, one, or a superposition of both. Again, to over-simplify things, this allows quantum computers to consider a vast number of...

Two years ago Google and NASA bought a D-Wave 2X quantum computing system and the Chocolate Factory has now pronounced itself very pleased with the results. "We found that for problem instances involving nearly 1000 binary variables, quantum annealing significantly outperforms its classical counterpart, simulated annealing. It is more than 108 times faster than simulated annealing running on a single core," Hartmut Neven, Google's director of engineering reported on Tuesday. Now comparing almost any operation against a single core is a bit of a fudge, but the results show that Google and NASA certainly feel D-Wave's take on quantum computing...

Australian police raided the Sydney home and office on Wednesday of a man named by Wired magazine as the probable creator of bitcoin and holder of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency, Reuters witnesses said. More than a dozen federal police officers entered a house registered on the electoral roll to Craig Steven Wright, whom Wired outed as the likely real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous figure that first released bitcoin's code in 2009. Locksmiths broke open the door of the property, in a suburb on Sydney's north shore. When asked what they were doing, one...

Apple today released iOS 9.2 which contains improvements and bug fixes including: Apple Music improvements    Apple today released iOS 9.2 which contains improvements and bug fixes including: Apple today released iOS 9.2 which contains improvements and bug fixes including: Apple Music improvements You can now create a new playlist when adding a song to a playlist Your most recently changed playlist is now listed at the top when adding songs to playlists Download albums or playlists from your iCloud Music Library by tapping the iCloud download button See which songs have been downloaded with the new download indicator next to...

No workarounds. Microsoft is warning users runing the Domain Name Service (DNS) look up feature on Windows Server to patch their installations against a critical vulnerability that permits attackers to remotely execute code on affected machines. The vulnerability has been assigned the common vulnerabilities and exploits index term CVE-2015-6125 and affects 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012 and 2012 R2, and the stripped-down Server Core variants, Microsoft said. Windows Server Technical Preview 3 and 4 are also affected

... Apple today released a substantial update for its iOS mobile operating system, containing bug fixes and multiple patches for remotely exploitable vulnerabilities. No fewer than 50 security flaws are patched in iOS 9.2, 19 of which permitted local and remote execution of arbitrary code without user interaction. The zlib file compression library, CoreMedia Playback media utility, libarchive archival utility and the OpenGL 2D and 3D graphics platform all allowed maliciously crafted websites to run arbitrary code on victims' systems, Apple said in its security advisory. Ten flaws in the WebKit rendering engine, used by Apple's Safari web browser and...

Drudge link -- can't post article.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British animal genetics firm, working with U.S. scientists, has bred the world's first pigs resistant to a common viral disease, using the hot new technology of gene editing. Genus, which supplies pig and bull semen to farmers worldwide, said on Tuesday it had worked with the University of Missouri to develop pigs resistant to Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSv). The condition, also known as blue-ear disease, can be fatal as it affects the animals' immune system and costs farmers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. There is no cure.