The first experimental demonstration of quantum telecloning has been achieved by scientists at the University of Tokyo, the Japan Science and Technology Agency, and the University of York.

Telecloning combines cloning (or copying) with teleportation (i.e., disembodied transport).

The scientists have succeeded in making the first remote copies of beams of laser light, by combining quantum cloning with quantum teleportation into a single experimental step. Telecloning is more efficient than any combination of teleportation and local cloning because it relies on a new form of quantum entanglement – multipartite entanglement.

Professor Sam Braunstein, of the Department of Computer Science at York, said: “Quantum mechanics allows us to do things which we previously thought were impossible. In 1998, I was involved in an experiment in America which was one of the first for quantum teleportation in which we transmitted a beam of light without it crossing the physical medium in between.

“This new experiment is an extension of that work. Whether it will change the world for individuals or is just of use to governments or big companies is hard to say. Any new protocol is like a new-born baby and it has to develop, but we know this one could be used to tap cryptographic channels. Quantum cryptographic protocols are so secure that they can not only discover tapping but also where and how much information is leaking out. Now, using telecloning, the identity and location of the eavesdropper can be concealed…”

John Robb:

Nassim Taleb, a scientist-philosopher-businessman, makes the case that 9/11 was a black swan. A black swan is a unpredictable event that defies prediction. An outlier. I agree. He expands: “A vicious black swan has an additional elusive property: its very unexpectedness helps create the conditions for it to occur. Had a terrorist attack been a conceivable risk on Sept. 10, 2001, it would likely not have happened.”

Jeffrey Rowland puts me into an OVERCOMPENSATING comic again. Also: bukkake. Cheers, mate.

[TAGS]overcompensating, wigu, comics+are+good, bukkake[/TAGS]

I’ve been trying to amass enough music for a new podcast so I could play you “He Went Into Space” by the Dagons. But I haven’t found enough really good stuff yet, and I’m sick of waiting.

Now, I could just send you to The Dagons website to download it, but I’m afraid of killing their bandwidth. So I’m going to host it myself for a week. You can get it from the above link if you arrive late.

“He Went Into Space”: The Dagons

All details here

Commencing a new series of columns about comics and etcetera at Comicon Pulse: go here and select it off the front page.

Big article by Chris Arrant on the FELL format and those who are following.

[TAGS]fell, snowtown[/TAGS]

Charity Larrison just made me look at this. Your turn.

Found in the comments section of this post and later copped-to in email:

[TAGS]nerdprom, nerd+prom, joss+whedon, target+for+revenge[/TAGS]

I wonder what he’s bringing me.

That Fucking Tank: because sometimes you just want a little bit of the rock and the roll. “Pumping Iron” is taken from the album THE DAY OF DEATH BY BONO ADRENALINE SHOCK, on Jealous Records, who will also sell you a copy or tell you where in your country you can buy it, I’m sure.

The file’s good for seven days, unless I’m asked to take it down before then, and is presented for review purposes only.

“Pumping Iron” – That Fucking Tank

This service appears to want to handle your digital music distribution, you musician-types — they take a fee here and there, and give you everything your music earns. Might be worth a look.

Every hotel room in southern California was booked within eighteen femtoseconds of the San Diego Comics Convention reservations webpage being uploaded. That’s it, people. If you didn’t get your booking confirmed within eighteeen femtoseconds of the starting pistol, you’re screwed. Because there are one hundred thousand hungry people out there who need to attend San Diego Comics Convention in order to walk right past all that comics shit and go straight to sniffing Brandon Routh’s cricketbox, sending bits of themselves to the cast of SERENITY and masturbating ferociously in the men’s stalls while wearing V FOR VENDETTA masks and discounted Hulk Hands.

No, of course I’m not going.

Nerd Prom: It Begins Now. Never forget.

[TAGS]nerdprom, nerd+prom, sdcc, comicon[/TAGS]

Gareth Jelley is currently travelling in China:

All details here

Via Adrants:

AOL has hired Ashton Kutcher and his production company, Katalyst, to develop several planted characters who will work their way into AOL’s AIM community. The characters, each part five separate projects, will “appear” in 20 episodic storylines…

Because what IM really needed is some bot developed by podpeople from a twentymoppet’s prodco messaging you out of the blue with some worthless half-bright gibberish that links you to an ad farm and some tv presenter’s idea of a story. And I’m pretty sure porn, as ever, got there first anyway.

Doesn’t all this just fundamentally misunderstand IM?

[TAGS] IM, AIM, Ashton+Kutcher, scum[/TAGS]

Last week US defence chiefs unveiled their plan for battling global Islamist extremism. They envisage a conflict fought in dozens of countries and for decades to come.

Looking beyond the Iraq and Afghan battlefields, US commanders envisage a war unlimited in time and space against global Islamist extremism. “The struggle … may well be fought in dozens of other countries simultaneously and for many years to come,” the report says. The emphasis switches from large-scale, conventional military operations, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq, towards a rapid deployment of highly mobile, often covert, counter-terrorist forces.

Among specific measures proposed are: an increase in special operations forces by 15%; an extra 3,700 personnel in psychological operations and civil affairs units – an increase of 33%; nearly double the number of unmanned aerial drones; the conversion of submarine-launched Trident nuclear missiles for use in conventional strikes; new close-to-shore, high-speed naval capabilities; special teams trained to detect and render safe nuclear weapons quickly anywhere in the world; and a new long-range bomber force.

The report, whose consequences are still being assessed in European capitals, states: “This war requires the US military to adopt unconventional and indirect approaches.” It adds: “We have been adjusting the US global force posture, making long overdue adjustments to US basing by moving away from a static defence in obsolete cold war garrisons, and placing emphasis on the ability to surge quickly to troublespots across the globe.”

As well as big expenditure projects, the report calls for: investments in signals and human intelligence gathering – spies on the ground; funding for the Nato intelligence fusion centre; increased space radar capability; the expansion of the global information grid (a protected information network); and an information-sharing strategy “to guide operations with federal, state, local and coalition partners”. A push will also be made to improve forces’ linguistic skills, with an emphasis on Arabic, Chinese and Farsi.

The cold war dominated the world from 1946 to 1991: the long war could determine the shape of the world for decades to come…

[TAGS] long+war, pentagon, global+conflict[/TAGS]

A University of Florida study suggests children living in the South are up to three times more likely to battle poor health than other U.S. children.

“Hurricane Katrina gave the world a glimpse of the disparities in the South,” said Dr. Jeffrey Goldhagen, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of community pediatrics. “Our research documents just how profoundly these disparities impact the health of children in the region.”

The poor health outcomes researchers documented included low birth weight, teenage pregnancy, death and other problems such as mental illness, asthma, obesity, tooth decay and school performance…

MPs have voted by huge margins to ban smoking from all pubs and private members’ clubs in England. The ban is expected to start in summer 2007.