Technology, features and articles | Educational Science

Jan 12, 2024

CES 2024: The best laptops for students

If you're holding out for a new machine, there are plenty to choose from now that CES 2024 has come to an end. As always, laptop makers have used it to showcase the many devices set to launch in the months ahead — including those best suited for students. While...

Jan 29, 2024

How could this new type of room-temperature qubit usher in the next phase of quantum computing?

Scientists have built a qubit, or quantum bit, that can achieve quantum coherence at room temperature — something normally only possible at temperatures close to absolute zero. To achieve quantum coherence — a stable state in which the weird laws of quantum mechanics can be observed — qubits must normally...

Feb 1, 2024

World's 1st fault-tolerant quantum computer launching this year ahead of a 10,000-qubit machine in 2026

The world's first commercial fault-tolerant quantum computer with logical qubits may be running before the year's end. Logical qubits — physical quantum bits, or qubits, connected through quantum entanglement — reduce errors in quantum computers by storing the same data in different places. This diversifies the points of failure when...

Feb 20, 2024

World's 1st PC rediscovered by accident in UK house clearance nearly 50 years after last sighting

Two Q1 microcomputers, widely considered to be the first single-microchip PCs, have been found by house clearers in the U.K. The discovery brings the total number of known surviving units to three in the world. Employees from the house-clearing company Just Clear found the two Q1s buried under several boxes...

Feb 24, 2024

Qubits are notoriously prone to failure — but building them from a single laser pulse may change this

Scientists have created an error-free quantum bit, or qubit, from a single pulse of light, raising hopes for a light-based room-temperature quantum computer in the future. While bits in classical computers store information as either 1 or 0, qubits in quantum computers can encode information as a superposition of 1...

Mar 8, 2024

New DNA-infused computer chip can perform calculations and make future AI models far more efficient

Scientists have created a new biocomputing chip that makes calculations using a DNA substrate, including mathematical operations essential to artificial intelligence (AI) training and big data processing. Researchers described the new biocomputing platform Oct. 19, 2023, in the journal PLOS One. DNA is known as the blueprint for life and...

Mar 14, 2024

World's largest computer chip WSE-3 will power massive AI supercomputer 8 times faster than the current record-holder

Scientists have built the world's largest computer chip — a behemoth packed with 4 trillion transistors. The massive chip will one day be used to run a monstrously powerful artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer, its makers say. The new Wafer Scale Engine 3 (WSE-3) is the third generation of the supercomputing...

Mar 18, 2024

Computing 'paradigm shift' could see phones and laptops run twice as fast — without replacing a single component

A new approach to computing could double the processing speed of devices like phones or laptops without needing to replace any of the existing components. Modern devices are fitted with different chips that handle various types of processing. Alongside the central processing unit (CPU), devices have graphics processing units (GPUs),...

Sep 14, 2012

Why the iPhone 5 Doesn't Have NFC for Mobile Payments

One hot new technology the iPhone 5 does not have is near-field communications, commonly known as NFC. The tech is the basis of many phone-as-wallet programs, which allow people to pay for purchases by tapping their phones against an NFC reader in stores. The new Nokia Lumia 920 has NFC,...

Sep 21, 2012

Gender, Tone of Automated Phone Voice Affects Caller Experience

Automated voice systems are often used in place of human customer service representatives. New research suggests the gender and tone of these voices can impact a caller's user experience. In the study, participants interacted with an automated phone system, also known as an interactive voice response (IVR), that collected information...

Oct 23, 2012

Private Porn Pics Aren't Private for Long

Eighty-eight percent of homemade pornography, including videos and still images, finds its way onto porn sites, often without the owners' knowledge, a new study concluded. The study analyzed more than 12,000 sexually explicit images uploaded by young people and found that the great majority of images had been stolen and...

Nov 26, 2012

Judge Orders Sex Plaintiffs to Hand Over Cellphones, Online Accounts

A judge has ordered nearly two dozen women who are participants in a lawsuit alleging unlawful sexual harassment to hand over their cellphones, as well as login information for their email accounts, blogs and Facebook and other social-networking accounts. The order was issued so that the defense may access photos,...

Jan 15, 2013

Fujitsu: The Flip Phone Favored by Philanderers

If your spouse seems oddly devoted to an outdated cellphone, beware: Japan's philanderers have discovered that one particular flip phone, the Fujitsu F-Series phone, is the perfect choice for those who keep a little something on the side. The F-series phone, introduced in 2002, has a unique privacy setting that's...

Mar 8, 2013

Phone Scammers Fleece Retiree Out of House and Home

Nigerian email scammers have been conning unsuspecting Westerners for years. More recent forms of the advance-fee fraud have taken on the form of emails promising foreign-lottery winnings. But a poor retiree from Baltimore was fleeced out of his life savings and even his house — entirely over the telephone. It...

Apr 2, 2013

Think You're Anonymous? Cellphone Data Gives You Away

Just four points of location data from one's cellphone is enough to uniquely identify the person about 95 percent of the time, new research suggests. Sifting through 15 months of anonymous location data from 1.5 million cellphone users, researchers found that just four points of data could uniquely identify 95...