First portable quantum computers on sale in Japan? | Hacker News Reader

First portable quantum computers on sale in Japan?

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64 pointsAnon8445 comments

Is this a scam? I'm not asking rhetorically I actually don't understand what this thing does or who its for

I've been hearing a few apparently earnest mentions of using quantum computers for actual application in the last bit. I think that's BS, correct? There is no demonstrated thing that current quantum computers are better at, save for possibly a contrived problem? Am I missing some advance?

It's still very much a research problem, yes.

I believe you're right. This product seems to be aimed at education. I.e., people/companies who want to play around with something resembling a quantum computer in order to learn how they might one day be useful to them. Maybe buying one also helps build an image of innovation and scientific prowess.

They claim to have 2 or 3 qubits, depending on the model. Notwithstanding the people howling about Shor's and whatnot in this thread, the claims about its capabilities are entirely underwhelming.

I can't tell if you are talking about these particular devices or quantum computing in general. Lots of research, lots of money, but still very limited use cases. This is exactly the sort of device you might need to purchase with that research money though.

The cubit/kubit/qubit typo does not inspire confidence in this article. Here's the items for sale, in Japanese: https://www.switch-science.com/search?type=article%2Cpage%2C...*

For what it's worth, the site is not from an English speaking country, and c/k/q are common points of confusion for ESL

Japanese also don't distinct v/b and l/r so love [lav] is written as rabu (-u because with exception of -n they don't like to end word on consonant), thus "rabu songu"

Oh, I found the apparently quite limited number of Japanese syllables interesting, and indeed:

> The basic units of the Japanese writing system are syllables. Standard Japanese uses 100 distinct syllables. Of these, 5 are single vowels, 62 are consonants combined with a vowel, and 53 are consonants combined with 'y' plus a vowel. [1]

Which suggests a relatively obvious possibility of a simple writing system, where learning to write and read doesn't require memorizing countless (logographic / concept based) kanji. Though kanji seem to be older. So apparently the syllable/character association was not as obvious as it seems.

It's interesting that assigning syllables characters isn't really practical in Germanic/Romance languages, as there are far more than in Japanese. One source cites 15.000 out of 100.000 possible for English [2]. It's actually cool that someone came up with the consonant/vowel distinction, ages ago, which saves tons of characters, and which proved to be a big advantage (mostly over logographic writing) when the printing press took Europe by storm, while it flopped in China and Korea [3].

[1] http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/japan/japanworkbook/language/l...

[2] https://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/courses/spsci/iss/week7.php

[3] https://erik-engheim.medium.com/why-didnt-china-become-the-w...

> Which suggests a relatively obvious possibility of a simple writing system, where learning to write and read doesn't require memorizing countless (logographic / concept based) kanji. Though kanji seem to be older. So apparently the syllable/character association was not as obvious as it seems.

Its somewhat shocking to me that you are not aware of hiragana and katakana or at the very least romanji. They are mentioned in [1] in the writing section.

From [1]:

> Kanji : Thousands of characters borrowed from Chinese writing, each with a different meaning

> Hiragana : 46 "smooth" style phonetic symbols used for inflected endings, grammatical particles and other Japanese words

> Katakana : 46 "block" style phonetic symbols used for writing foreign loan words, foreign names, and for emphasis

Yeah, but those never replaced kanji apparently. So Japanese people always had to learn ~thousands of characters instead a hundred.

It's not either or, they are used together. Once you become even an intermediate learner of the language lack of kanji actually makes it more difficult to read text that is just in kana. Japanese and Chinese can also present the interesting problem for a learner of perfectly understanding what a written sentence means without having the ability to actually say it out loud.

Also excluding names, there are less than two thousand kanji in modern Japanese. Still a lot but not some insurmountable task.

>Also excluding names, there are less than two thousand kanji in modern Japanese. Still a lot but not some insurmountable task.

The problem with these kanji is that each one has several possible pronunciations/sounds. That, and writing without spaces, increases the difficulty to the maximum. You cannot read a word without previously knowing it, only sightly guess if you have a high level of knowledge and try good luck.

Japanese people can not read old texts in their own language due this.

I think "Q" is obvious letter for quantum related products

And they shall make a computer of Dimethylphosphite molecules: 2 or 3 qubits shall be the capacity thereof, and a cubit and a half the length thereof, and a half cubit the breadth thereof…

Flicking through the description. That sight is just reselling the computer.

It’s actually from a Chinese startup called SpinQ.

The story should probably be Chinese startup selling 2/3 qubit desktop quantum computers.

The Quantenkoffer by qutools is an interesting kit for learning about quantum stuff [1]

Also, Qiskit pulse was fun to play around with (haven't in awhile, don't know what the current capabilities are) [2]

[1] https://qutools.com/quantenkoffer_science-kit/

[2] https://qiskit.org/documentation/apidoc/pulse.html

Had HN been around when personal computing dropped, I imagine that we could have made some attempt at a steel man argument justifying such a purpose. Even if that argument was 'hobbyists', there was something to be said.

With Quantum computing, what would that be?

Is there any practical use for one of these at the moment? As a hobby dev, what could I do with one?

They seem to be marketed for educational purposes. You could simulate them in software easily. They could be useful for research, but they're not directly useful for computing, except as a novelty.

You could simulate them in software easily.

Yes, just like you can simulate an ntsc interlaced screen in software.

Yes, if no one had actually made a useful ntsc screen.

It even comes bundled with simulation software:

"Gemini Mini is a conditionally portable, entry-level 2-cubit system... The device has built-in CASTOR software, allowing it to simulate the operation of 8 qubits."

Not sure what benefit you get from using real qubits vs just simulating them, even for educational purposes.

Real qubits have flaws, and you could experiment to see under what conditions they work better or worse, like by applying magnetic fields. Simulated qubits are presumably flawless, and so you can't experiment with them.

Potentially, something like generating high quality random numbers. This assumes a great deal about the fidelity of the qubits and the control software though.

There is much better, faster, cheaper hardware out there to generate random numbers. Using a quantum computer as an RNG is akin to buying an airplane and using it to blow-dry a carpet.

I mean, I'm not sure what else you'd literally do with it. Simulating the claimed 8 qubits would require not much classical processing power at all, unless there is something fundamental about the TRNG behavior/fidelity of qubits. Entanglement is interesting but what are you going to do other than simply demonstrate entanglement? I guess you could run Deutsch's with it. Fun. This seems like more of a teaching machine than anything.

Small qubits count machines could be useful for teaching about qubit operations. I can see several lab assignments based around these machine: measure the readout fidelity, measure the gate fidelity, measure T1 time, etc.

Modern processors already ship with hardware that enables high quality random numbers.

When your school is trying to sell itself, "we run a quantum computer lab" is a good thing. These would appear the cheapest means of qualifying that statement in your international student brochure.

It's at best a joke, quite likely a scam.

No, switch science is a legitimate parts distributor in Japan, kinda like Adafruit.

Kind of like the early computers.

You could probably compute the prime factors of 15 with one.

I understand why certain tech companies such as Google/MSFT or chemical research companies like Pfizer or defense companies like Lockheed have quantum computers.

Why are these being sold for personal use? Running Shor's algorithm probably gets boring after the second or third time.

Plus, this machine simulates up to 8 qubits - what's the point of something that small?

Best guess? Because simulating more than 8 qubits requires lots of processing power.

26 qubits requires 1 GB of memory to simulate.

I noticed that "qubit" is spelled at least two different ways, and both of them are incorrect ("cubit" and "Kubit").

I thought quantum computing wouldn't be a thing for another few decades? What is this?

At least the first home computer was actually useful.

I won't believe in it until it proves to solve one of the known NP problems in polynomial time.

But can they run Crysis?

No, but Skyrim is coming soon.

What about doom?

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