Google and NASA have got themselves an extremely speedy quantum computer
We don’t care how much money you have, you’re not going to be giving up your Macbook or Windows machine in favour of a quantum computer any time soon. Google and NASA, on the other hand, have a lot of money. Enough to have bought a 2X quantum PC from company D-Wave, who have been working on the technology for years. And the two technology giants have just announced a few stats – in the highly-specialised tasks that quantum computers are capable of, the 1000-qubit D-Wave 2X is up to 100 million times than a traditional single-core processor working on the same problem. Impressive numbers, to be sure, but we’re still working out how quantum computers work. And what we can do with them. But the latest numbers are encouraging. Perhaps we’ll get that time-travel working after all.
Source: via Ars Technica
Would you pay almost as much for your iPhone headphones as you did for the phone?
There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who will happily drop R12,000 ($800) on a pair of headphones for a R15,500 iPhone 6s (the base price, at the moment) and those who have to think about it. Actually, there are more kinds of people but they’re inconvenient so we’re ignoring them. The question is: Are the new Audeze EL-8 Titanium headphones worth dropping most of the value of a new phone on a set of highly-specific cans? Since it has a DSP (digital signal processor), DAC (digital to analogue coverter) and amp built into its Cypher cable, which probably justifies the fancy name because of all the embedded tech. The EL-8 Titanium setup comes with a Lightning connecter as well as a 3.5mm jack, so you can use it with everything, but it’s being positioned to appeal to Apple audiophiles. Check out the video (above) for the rest of its high-tech features).
Source: Audeze
This is the insanely-expensive portable Rolls Royce cocktail bar
Speaking of having too much money, surely you need your very own portable Rolls Royce-made cocktail bar? Hand-made over a period of eight weeks and using American Walnut and the same leather that you’ll find inside the interior of a Rolls, this is what you’re packing if you’re going to drive to a picnic far from the peasants and then mix up a few drinks for your elegantly-attired company. We think. We’re not really sure what goes with Rolls ownership. A lordship and a permanent seat in First Class, probably. If you can’t afford one of the cars, you can’t afford one of these cocktail hampers. There are going to be a mere fifteen of them made and each one will set buyers back about R700,000 -or the price of a new car that isn’t a Rolls. We’ll just admire this from afar, thanks.
Source: Rolls Royce
