Technology, Gadgets, IT, Games

The Center for Information Work at Microsoft concentrates on taking emerging and new technology and finding real-world applications for it. One product they have developed is the DigiDesk workstation, shown off at Convergence 07. The DigiDesk is a workstation intended for use at a manufacturing plant or suchlike, and it combines many managerial functions into one station. From this desk, you could check for errors on the system, see where stock is, calculate whether there is enough stock to fulfil any new orders, automatically order new stock, alter the schedules and rotas to accommodate changes and publish them directly to the web. It also includes a document digitizer (OCR), natural language input (speech recognition) and loads of fancy user interface gimmicks such as manual on-screen document moving and resizing. No word on when this would actually be implemented anywhere, but the concept is great. Video after the jump. Read more

Canada’s D-Wave Systems has announced ‘the world’s first ‘commercially viable’ quantum computer.

Quantum bits (qubits) are digits that can be either ‘on’, ‘off’ or ‘both’, due to strange quantum physics down at the atomic scale. This 16-qubit processor can solve simple problems such as Sudoku and create complex ‘seating plans’ – not exactly good compared to normal binary computers.

However, if quantum computers can be created that process calculations thousands of qubits, they could be used for tasks modern computers take decades to pursue, such as encryption. Read more