DailyDirt: Who Cares About Moore's Law Anymore?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wed, Apr 6th 2016 5:00pm — Michael Ho

The end of Moore's law is basically here already, but it's not such a surprise. It's maybe more surprising that it's lasted so long. What are we going to do now that our computers aren't getting exponentially better? Try completely different ways of making computers, of course. Quantum computers are making some significant advances, even though they're not ready to compete with regular silicon processors just yet. Here are just a few new quantum milestones that could lead to some re-thinking of encryption schemes and programming courses.

A quantum computer built from just 5 atoms demonstrates a possible new way to build a practical quantum computer with many, many more qubits. The researchers working on this demo used Shor's algorithm to factor the number 15 (ok, not exactly encryption-breaking yet), but it's another step towards scaling up a quantum computer that could do calculations that are impractical for traditional computers today. [url]
A quantum spin liquid could be useful for making a quantum computer someday -- if we can figure out how to manipulate them and measure them correctly. Cooling exotic materials down to near absolute zero is a bit problematic, but a few supercomputers in the 1980s were cooled with liquid nitrogen, so it's not impossible to imagine liquid-helium-cooled quantum computers will exist for a while until technology improves. [url]
Optical qubits are making some progress, too. Researchers have achieved "multiphoton entangled quantum states" -- for the first time -- and they say it should be scalable.... [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

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Filed Under: optical qubits, quantum computers, quantum computing, quantum physics, quantum spin liquid, qubits, shor's algorithm, supercomputers

12 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 6 Apr 2016 @ 5:38pm

moore's law
The end is nigh! (not yet)

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/04/economist-explains-17

not until 2025?
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Pixelation, 6 Apr 2016 @ 9:07pm

Totally cool
"but a few supercomputers in the 1980s were cooled with liquid nitrogen"

People are still using liquid nitrogen to cool their computers, for example...

http://imagescdn.tweaktown.com/content/5/2/5276_01_team_au_overclocking_in_perth_with_liqu id_nitrogen_deanzo_s_thoughts.jpg

Woot!
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nasch (profile), 7 Apr 2016 @ 7:45am

Moore's Law
What are we going to do now that our computers aren't getting exponentially better?

You know that isn't what Moore's Law says, right?
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- JoeCool (profile), 7 Apr 2016 @ 9:30am
  
  Re: Moore's Law
  Most people don't. They THINK is says SPEED will double every 18 months because that's commonly what pundits spout on the news. The actual saying is that the DENSITY of circuits double every two years. While speed has plateaued lately, density is still improving nicely, so Moore's law is still in no danger of ending.
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  - nasch (profile), 7 Apr 2016 @ 9:57am
    
    Re: Re: Moore's Law
    Most people don't.
    
    I was hoping Michael Ho did though.
    
    While speed has plateaued lately, density is still improving nicely, so Moore's law is still in no danger of ending.
    
    It may not continue to be economically viable to keep it up though.
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  - Richard (profile), 8 Apr 2016 @ 3:17pm
    
    Re: Re: Moore's Law
    density is still improving nicely, so Moore's law is still in no danger of ending.
    
    But, without a similar increase in speed we have found it difficult to make use of the extra density - so practical performance has not improved to the same extent.
    
    Also Vitanyi's 1995 prediction for the inevitably 3kw laptop/heater by 2015 has not materialised and so we have definitely fallen short in some sense.
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    - JoeCool (profile), 14 Apr 2016 @ 11:24am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Moore's Law
      Actually, it's been easy to make use of the extra density to improve performance. The extra density provides for more cores (multiprocessing has come a long way in the last decade, so we get more from more cores than we used to), larger caches (the BIGGEST improvement in performance you'll find on any platform), and more pipes for CPUs and GPUs (especially big for GPUs).
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 7 Apr 2016 @ 8:09am

Re: My dream...
That's not a limitation of the hardware, it's a limitation of software. Remember, they sent men to the moon with similar power to a calculator watch, but they did it without Start buttons or solitaire. Think about all the fancy your OS has and think about how much faster it would run without all that stuff that just looks pretty or you outright just don't use.
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- nasch (profile), 7 Apr 2016 @ 10:00am
  
  Re: Re: My dream...
  Think about all the fancy your OS has and think about how much faster it would run without all that stuff that just looks pretty or you outright just don't use.
  
  Throw Xubuntu on there and take off!
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- John Fenderson (profile), 9 Apr 2016 @ 10:19pm
  
  Re: Re: My dream...
  This.
  
  The amount of computing power that is wasted for no good reason is stupendously mindblowing. I don't see any sign that this will change anytime soon.
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Someone you know, 7 Apr 2016 @ 1:31pm

Re: My dream...
Um... I have just about the same setup only with an Samsung 950 pro m.4 HDD... 20 seconds from button press to desktop with no OS or BIOS tweaks. Adobe products launch in about 3-10 seconds. Smaller programs are up before my finger lifts from the click. How much faster do you want to get?
-
i7 5820k, ASUS x99, Radeon R9 390X, 256 Samsung 950 pro m.4
-
I know... we want a cerebral cortex interface so it knows what we want before we do. LOL.
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- Richard (profile), 8 Apr 2016 @ 3:20pm
  
  Re: Re: My dream...
  The Tempus editor on the Atari ST ran quicker and more responsively than any modern word processor!
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