We frequently have discussions here in Hursley about what the next ‘big thing’ in computing technology will be, Darren in particular is always on the search but hasn’t come across anything groundbreaking in the last few months ( and he doesnt count Second Life as ground breaking either )

Quantum computing is one of those technologies that has been teetering on the brink of my vision for quite a while, but has always seemed far enough off that i haven’t paid it too much attention, it seems now that a Canadian company called D-wave has made what they claim to be the worlds first practical quantum computer. (as reported by ABC news)

Still when we do get our hands on this scifi level of technology I wonder how long it will take us to adjust to it?

I don’t know about you but I’m not sure i want to try and debug one of these critters.

Following the odd laws of quantum mechanics, the digital “bits” that race through its circuits will be able to stand for 0 or 1 at the same time, allowing the machine, eventually, to do work that is orders of magnitude more complex than what today’s computers can do.

Maybe I’ll go half way and try some programming for the Cell processor first.