Record Breaker – Page 2

IBM, quantum computing, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

IBM publishes its quantum roadmap, says it will have a 1,000-qubit machine in 2023

September 25, 2020

IBM Quantum Hummingbird

IBM today, for the first time, published its road map for the future of its quantum computing hardware. There is a lot to digest here, but the most important news in the short term is that the company believes it is on its way to building a quantum processor with more than 1,000 qubits — and somewhere between 10 and 50 logical qubits — by the end of 2023.

Currently, the company’s quantum processors top out at 65 qubits. It plans to launch a 127-qubit processor next year and a 433-qubit machine in 2022. To get to this point, IBM is also building a completely new dilution refrigerator to house these larger chips, as well as the technology to connect multiple of these units to build a system akin to today’s multi-core architectures in classical chips.

Continue reading… “IBM publishes its quantum roadmap, says it will have a 1,000-qubit machine in 2023”

Automobiles, Electric Automobile, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

Welcome to the age of the all-electric hypercar

August 27, 2020

Boasting up to 2,000bhp with no fuel cap, a trio of new releases from Lotus, Pininfarina and Rimac are here for when your Ferrari just isn’t fast enough

Same old story. You wait ages for one 2,000bhp, all-electric hypercar to arrive, and then three come along at once. Three underdog brands with very different backstories, three cars that are almost impossible to resist comparing, each with startlingly similar statistics and almost identical price tags that sound more like government furlough bill

In Cambiano, the 1,900bhp Pininfarina Battista will become the most powerful Italian road-legal car ever — itself quite a record — and the first to be badged by the coachbuilder and design house behind some of the most beautiful sports cars of the 20th century (the Ferrari 250GT, Cisitalia 202 and Fiat 124 Spider among them), now launching as a carmaker in its own right.

In Norfolk, the £2.2m Lotus Evija is about to enter production as the most powerful road car in the world, in what is the latest comeback chapter for the British sports car maker that is impossible to introduce without using the word “plucky”.

And in Croatia, Rimac is the no-bullshit start-up-cum-electric-powerhouse that is finalising its ultra-technical C_Two hypercar, which has a top speed of 415kmph and promises 0–100kmph acceleration in the time it takes to read the words “faster than a motorbike”. For the record, 1.85 seconds.

Continue reading… “Welcome to the age of the all-electric hypercar”

Architecture, Engineering, Housing, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

World’s tallest prefab skyscrapers will rise in Singapore — but they’re being built in Malaysia

August 15, 2020

A pair of skyscrapers are set to become the tallest prefabricated buildings in the world.

And while the two 192-meter-tall (630 feet) towers will rise in densely populated Singapore, large parts of the structures are being built over the border in Malaysia.

The residential project, named Avenue South Residences, will see 988 apartments formed from almost 3,000 vertically stacked “modules.” The firm behind the project, ADDP Architects, says the building method, known as Prefabricated Prefinished Volumetric Construction (PPVC), is less labor-intensive and can help reduce waste and noise pollution.

Continue reading… “World’s tallest prefab skyscrapers will rise in Singapore — but they’re being built in Malaysia”

Aviation, Engineering, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News, Transportation

Virgin Galactic debuts design of future Mach 3 high-speed aircraft, signs deal with Rolls-Royce

August 11, 2020

Virgin Galactic is making strides toward its goal of creating high-speed commercial aircraft that operates a little closer to Earth than its existing passenger spacecraft. The company revealed the initial design of the commercial passenger airplane it’s creating that’s designed to fly at speeds in excess of Mach 3 — faster than the average cruising speed of around Mach 2 that the original Concorde achieved.

This concept design comes alongside a new partnership for Virgin Galactic, by way of a memorandum of understanding that the company signed with Rolls-Royce, one of the world’s leading aircraft engine makers. Rolls-Royce is also responsible for the engine of the Concorde, one of the only supersonic commercial aircraft ever used for passenger travel.

Continue reading… “Virgin Galactic debuts design of future Mach 3 high-speed aircraft, signs deal with Rolls-Royce”

Batteries, Energy, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 5 refuels phones 50% in 5 minutes, 100% in 15

August 5, 2020

Wireless recharging has become increasingly popular over the past few years due to its convenience — just drop your phone on a pad and pick it up later — but wired charging is faster, and some ultra-high-speed options have emerged this month to power next-generation phones. Today, Qualcomm is adding its latest innovations to the mix under the name Quick Charge 5, a wired platform that promises to fully recharge upcoming phones in 15 minutes or go from zero to 50% in only five minutes.

Continue reading… “Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 5 refuels phones 50% in 5 minutes, 100% in 15”

3D Printer, Housing, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

Europe’s biggest 3D printer helps create an entire two-story house

July 27, 2020

While 3D printing might be most commonly used to print smaller-sized models or prototypes, that doesn’t mean it can’t also be used to print larger objects. Much, much larger. In Belgium, Europe’s largest 3D printer was recently used to print an entire house. Unlike other 3D-printed houses we’ve covered (of which there are a handful), this one has two floors — making it one of the biggest and most ambitious 3D-printed housing projects we’ve seen.

“[We used a] gantry printer delivered by COBOD [based in Denmark],” Emiel Ascione, project manager at Kamp C, the firm behind the project, told Digital Trends. “It was their prototype BOD2 [printer]. A gantry printer operates basically like the most common small plastic printers and uses the same type of software, [but on a much larger scale]. The concrete, the silo, as well as the mixing and pumping installation. were delivered by our partner Weber.”

The enormous gantry printer, measuring 32 feet x 32 feet, was used to print the shell of the house. Additional features such as the roof and windows were then added the old-fashioned way. It boasts numerous innovative sustainable features, including solar panels and underfloor heating.

Continue reading… “Europe’s biggest 3D printer helps create an entire two-story house”

communication, Internet, new technology, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

Samsung: Expect 6G in 2028, enabling mobile holograms and digital twins

July 23, 2020

Just as the earliest 5G networks began to go live two years ago, a handful of scientists were eager to publicize their initial work on the next-generation 6G standard, which was at best theoretical back then, and at worst an ill-timed distraction. But as 5G continues to roll out, 6G research continues, and today top mobile hardware developer Samsung is weighing in with predictions of what’s to come. Surprisingly, the South Korean company is preparing for early 6G to launch two years ahead of the commonly predicted 2030 timeframe, even though both the proposed use cases and the underlying technology are currently very shaky.

Given that the 5G standard already enabled massive boosts in data bandwidth and reductions in latency over 4G, the questions of what more 6G could offer — and why — are key to establishing the need for a new standard. On the “what” side, Samsung expects 6G to offer 50 times higher peak data rates than 5G, or 1,000Gbps, with a “user experienced data rate” of 1Gbps, plus support for 10 times more connected devices in a square kilometer. Additionally, Samsung is targeting air latency reductions from 5G’s under 1 millisecond to under 100 microseconds, a 100 times improvement in error-free reliability, and twice the energy efficiency of 5G.

Continue reading… “Samsung: Expect 6G in 2028, enabling mobile holograms and digital twins”

Engineering, quantum computing, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

MIT engineers use ‘artificial atoms’ to make the world’s largest quantum chip of its kind

July 16, 2020

Quantum chips have proved somewhere between difficult and impossible to manufacture

Researchers at MIT have developed a way to manufacturer “artificial atoms” to produce what they claim is the world’s largest quantum chip of its kind.

The atoms have been created in microscopically thin slices of diamond.

The accomplishment “marks a turning point” in the field of quantum processors, said Dirk Englund, associate professor at MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, in a statement.

Continue reading… “MIT engineers use ‘artificial atoms’ to make the world’s largest quantum chip of its kind”

Engineering, new technology, quantum computing, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

Honeywell claims to have world’s highest performing quantum computer according to IBM’s benchmark

June 20, 2020

The chamber housing the ion trap in Honeywell’s quantum computer system.

Honeywell said JP Morgan Chase and other customers are using its quantum computer in production, which it claims is the most powerful currently in use based on a benchmark established last year by IBM.

Industrial giant Honeywell on Thursday said it is now live with a quantum computer running client jobs that uses six effective quantum bits, or qubits, and a resulting “volume” of compute that it claims makes the system the most powerful quantum machine currently in production.

The announcement fulfills a vow the company made in March to offer a machine with a quantum volume of 64, as related on March 3rd by ZDNet’s Lawrence Dignan in a conversation with Honeywell’s head of quantum, Tony Uttley, who is president of the division Honeywell Quantum Solutions.

“In March we said within the next three months we’re going to be releasing the world’s highest-performing quantum computer, and so this is a case of Honeywell did what it said it was going to do,” Uttley told ZDNet in a telephone call.

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Automation, Housing, New Inventions, Record Breaker, Robotics, Science & Technology News

Hadrian X brick-laying robot ups the ante to 200 blocks an hour

June 17, 2020

The Hadrian robot was created by Australian firm Fastbrick Robotics (FBR) and is named after the UK’s Hadrian Wall

Back in 2015 we looked at an interesting approach to automated construction in the form of a brick-laying robot, capable of putting together full-sized homes in just two days. The engineers behind the Hadrian X have continued making software improvements and have now announced a new record brick-laying speed, which they say makes the robot commercially competitive with manual workers around much of the world.

The Hadrian X robot was created by Australian firm Fastbrick Robotics (FBR) and is named after the UK’s Hadrian Wall. It features a telescopic boom that mounts to an excavator or truck, which is fed a 3D CAD model of a house and goes about placing bricks along with mortar and adhesive to build out the structure.

While the team has concept demonstrator robots designed to one day achieve laying rates of more than 1,000 bricks an hour, on the practical side things have been a little more slow-going. Software upgrades to the Hadrian X have seen it go from laying around 85 blocks an hour before the COVID-19 pandemic, to around 150 blocks an hour, and then onward to up over 200 blocks an hour.

Continue reading… “Hadrian X brick-laying robot ups the ante to 200 blocks an hour”

Engineering, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News, Transportation

Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link: Denmark approves start of work for €7 billion underwater tunnel to Germany

May 16, 2020

Danish MPs have given the green light to the construction of the Fehmarnbelt underwater tunnel which will reduce travel time between the country and Germany to just a few minutes.

Work on the Danish side is now expected to start on January 1, 2021, and the tunnel — known as the Fehmarnbelt link — is now forecast to open in mid-2029, the Ministry of Transport said in a statement on Friday.

Transport Minister Benny Engelbrecht hailed the MPs agreement as a “historic decision”, describing the tunnel as “a new gateway to Europe”.

Continue reading… “Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link: Denmark approves start of work for €7 billion underwater tunnel to Germany”

Engineering, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

The deepest hole in the world

May 16, 2020

The Kola Superdeep Borehole

For 24 years, Soviet scientists dug deeper into the Earth’s surface than anyone had ever done before. The result was the Kola Superdeep Borehole located on the Kola Peninsula in Russia.

The ambitious project began in the 1970s, and scientists in the former Soviet Union began to drill a hole that was just 9-inches (22.9 cm) in diameter. The hole eventually extended 7.5 miles (12.1 km) into the Earth’s crust, farther than the deepest point in the ocean, Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean at 6.8 miles (10.9 km).

Continue reading… “The deepest hole in the world”