Category: Geek service

Public service announcement: You can buy external hard drives in 1TB sizes now.

Meet quad-layer DVD, the third high-def DVD format after Blu-Ray and HD-DVD:

UK-based New Medium Enterprises (NME) has developed the Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD), a new optical-based format capable of storing 20GB of data.

Unlike HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, VMD is a red-laser technology that achieves its storage capacity by using a greater number of layers. VMD is precisely the same size and thickness as DVD. However, while DVD technology utilizes two layers of a disc, VMD technology has conceived multi-layering, where up to 5GB can easily be stored on each layer.

Naturally, new DVD players will be required. Had enough? I think I’m going to sit this format war out. I’ll just BT anything I can’t find on old DVD. The concept of fixed physical media is so 20th century oldskool anyway.

Tom’s Hardware has a detailed guide and overview on dual-core CPU technology for notebooks, comparing Intel’s Core/Core Duo (Yonah and Merom) to AMD’s Turion X2 series. If you are in the market for a new laptop anytime in the next year or two, this is an essential backgrounder. I’ll admit to being an Intel-fanboi partly because I am heavily biased towards mobile computing – any desktop PC I am likely to build in the future will be the silent-PC “mobile on desktop” type with heavy emphasis on notebook components to save power. True MoD will require desktop-PC motherboards that support the 945GM chipset, which are in development but I am not sure if have reached actual product yet. Soon.

I’m not a hardcore bleeding edge gamer, and my scientific applications will run fine on a multi-core chip. Even if games are your thing, going the MoD route is still tenable, given that external graphics cards are on the horizon. It’s a nascent niche but in two years the big honking desktop PC is going to go the way of the cold-blooded lumbering dinosaur, and the energy-efficient warm-blooded mammalian MoD systems shall inherit the earth.

Perhaps hoax is too strong a word. Canadian company D-Wave systems demoed a 16-“qubit” quantum computer last week, and demonstrated applications like playing Sudoku, searching a protein database, and calculating seating charts.

However, there is now some skepticism as to whether the device really constitutes a quantum computer in the general sense:

While impressive, some scientists don’t like the fact that the calculations were actually being done at a remote location and that the computer couldn’t be physically inspected. D-Wave reps were actually quite open about that detail saying the computer was too delicate to be moved because of its liquid helium cooling system and sensitive components.

Lieven Vandersypen, an associate professor at Delft University and quantum computing researcher, told the IEEE Spectrum that he is surprised that investors have put money into the company and that D-Wave “hasn’t published any major advances or breakthroughs in the scientific literature.” He adds that the company has very little detail to support their claims, something that a peer-reviewed article would have.

Phil Kuekes, a computer architect in the Quantum Science Research Group at HP Labs, was also skeptical telling the Associated Press, “Until we see more actual measurements, it’s hard to know whether they succeeded or not.”

The lack of any peer-reviewed publications about the computer is indeed troublesome. The CEO of D-Wave himself described it as a “special-purpose machine that uses some quantum mechanics” – which is not the same thing as a computer that can be programmed. In light of this, it’s hard to see any rational justification for going straight to demo other than PR (and perhaps to attract investment?).

UPDATE: Ars looks at the issue as well.