The latest form of exotic computing is magnetic; another breakthrough that could result in faster, cheaper, and even disposable computers. Meanwhile, the ultimate in exotic computing just took two steps forward. First, it seems we may be able to use common but cheap, abundant, and machinable silicon to make a quantum computer; and second, we can now stop light in its tracks for over a second, which could enable data to be stored at the quantum level, in frozen photons.

We wrote in 2003 about an ambitious plan to have computers analyze unstructured text and data. Two years later, it is being applied to electronic medical records at a second health system in the US. With IBM deciding to “open source” its sophisticated Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) (the technology already used by physicians at the Mayo Clinic to mine the institution’s vast medical records archives for new information) we can expect it to spread. (We also wrote in 2003 about the significance of open source.)

Other developments in computing and communications:

• A whole new Internet: There are people with vision and influence who see the need to predict and shape the future of the Internet, and who are doing something bold about it.
• Data over power lines: Just because a whole town is doing it doesn’t mean it has arrived, but it does mean it could soon be on its way to your town, too.

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Intel’s Gordon Moore predicted that a US$1 transistor in 1968 would cost under 10 cents in about five years. He was right, and the cost continued to fall 10-fold every four to five years. Since 1985 it has taken seven years to reach a 10-fold price drop, and as the cost of keeping up with Moore’s Law — i.e., of doubling the number of transistors on a chip every 18 months — rises, it will likely lengthen as higher prices depress demand. Moore effectively amended his law in 2003, when he said it would soon take two to three years to double the number of chips, since they were getting down to a fundamental physical size limit.

Absent breakthroughs, analysts see a significant slowdown in growth of the computer industry because of this. But even without fundamental breakthroughs, there seems to be no shortage of workarounds, such as putting two processors on one chip, or by combining memory with processors on a single chip, which increases speed and saves energy.

(Moore’s Law is still valid — and may even be an underestimate — for some types of chip, such as flash memory chips, however.)

Magnetic Computing

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Researchers at Durham University in the UK have built a computer out of magnetic microchips and interconnecting structures using magnetic nanowires, rather than semiconductor electronics. Its advantages over conventional computers include no heat (a major benefit) and a production cost so simple and potentially cheap it could lead to “disposable computers.”

Silicon Quantum Computer

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Hitachi and Cambridge University scientists have developed a silicon “quantum-dot charge qubit,” touted as the first step in the development of a quantum computer based on conventional silicon technology. It can be scaled up from one device to a large quantum circuit using standard fabrication techniques.

Step Towards Quantum Memory

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Australian National University researchers have set a world record for stopping light — over a second, which is more than a thousand times longer than the previous record. This is more than “just a neat trick, it is the basis of a quantum memory — a device capable of storing and recalling the quantum states of light,” said a researcher quoted in an ANU press release.

The light is “stored” for that second in a crystal, and the researchers are next aiming to store a single particle of light — a photon. If they can achieve that, they “will have demonstrated the world’s first quantum memory.”

Unstructured Data Mining

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The University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System and the University of Alabama will trial software from SAS to analyze doctors’ notes and other textual comments in patient records. The unstructured text data will be cross-referenced with lab results and other numerical data to create a full picture of patient health and help physicians make better clinical decisions sooner. The study may also reveal inefficiencies and help reduce hospital stays and expenses, and facilitate quality measurement and reporting.

IBM’s UIMA Goes Open Source

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IBM has made available free of charge, through open source, its Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) software for “mining” unstructured text and data in electronic documents, images, comment and note fields, e-mail, video, and audio. UIMA’s development took more than four years and was supported by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), with contributions from several leading universities and industrial research and development organizations.

UIMA is already being used in some university courses and research projects, by businesses including Science Applications International Corp., BBN Technologies, and MITRE Corporation. (The Mayo Clinic is also a user.)

An IBM executive said UIMA would “enable organizations to deliver groundbreaking solutions that can leverage unstructured information in entirely new and advanced ways.” The UIMA framework can currently be downloaded free of charge from IBM AlphaWorks.

New Internet

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One of the founders of the Internet has received a US$200,000 grant from the US National Science Foundation to draw up a plan for a whole new Internet, built from scratch rather than extending on the existing 30-year-old architecture. It would help facilitate new applications such as holohaptic communications (sharing touchable 3-D representations of people and environments) and would be more secure and convenient.

“Systems rigidify over time,” he told Wired. “Each of those incremental changes [to the current Internet] has interactions with the others. And each is harder to add than the last one. After a while, the effort-to-success ratio (becomes untenable).”

Broadband over Power Lines

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All residents of the city of Manassas, Virginia, can now access the Internet through their electrical power sockets. for approximately US$29 per month. It is not a test or a pilot, but a permanent commercial offering.