Is North Carolina at risk? Apple’s data center reportedly uses protomatter quantum computers UPDATED

[UPDATE: The post on which this article is based turned out to be a joke. The post’s author, Joe Moreno, indicated so in a post dated June 11, saying “my post about Apple’s quantum computer was a joke.”

Apple Computer is using protomatter to run quantum computers at its North Carolina data center in Hickory? Well, Joe Moreno says they are in a recent blog entry. Moreno worked at Apple from 1998-2007.

Apple uses a combination of heretofore theoretical technologies. Specifically, we shared time on what was similar to a Cray supercomputer, except it was a four (or eight – I forget) qubit quantum computer that ran on proto-matter. While many ethical scientists may consider proto-matter too dangerous and unstable to use, it can be very helpful at solving certain problems when it’s stable. (A loss of stability, three years ago and then, again, last year, are what lead to the MobileMe and antenna-gate fiascoes, respectively.)

According to Moreno, Apple founder Steve Jobs, in his WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) keynote speech this past week, referred to this. “You probably noticed that [jobs] never said [the North Carolina data center] was full of Xserves. Rather, he simply said that it was full of ‘stuff.’,” Moreno writes.

Apple’s quantum computers use holographic memory, Moreno says. True holographic memory, he says, “is the result of recording interference patterns on a photographic or photosensitive medium.”

The beauty of holographic data and memory is that it’s truly three dimensional (implicit redundancy). You can literally store data in this format, without any redundancy, hamming codes, or checksums, and, even if a large portion is damaged, you can still recover all of the information.

To envision how holographic memory works, imagine looking out of a window at a sign that you can read – the sign represents the data and your eyes are the input device. Even if someone tapes a sheet of paper on the window to block your view, you can still read the sign simply by moving your head. Obviously, at some point, if the holographic memory becomes too damaged, it might not be recoverable. But, you’d have to damage more than 99% of the memory to reach this point. Even if the entire window was blocked by drapes, you could still read the sign as long as there was a tiny pinhole.

So what happens to unstable protomatter quantum computers and the place they’re located? Maybe someone will help us understand what Apple is doing at its data center in Hickory and whether Joe Moreno has his head in an Apple iCloud.

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About Jeff Fobes
As a long-time proponent of media for social change, my early activities included coordinating the creation of a small community FM radio station to serve a poor section of St. Louis, Mo. In the 1980s I served as the editor of the "futurist" newsletter of the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome, a professional/academic group with a global focus and a mandate to act locally. During that time, I was impressed by a journalism experiment in Mississippi, in which a newspaper reporter spent a year in a small town covering how global activities impacted local events (e.g., literacy programs in Asia drove up the price of pulpwood; soybean demand in China impacted local soybean prices). Taking a cue from the Mississippi journalism experiment, I offered to help the local Green Party in western North Carolina start its own newspaper, which published under the name Green Line. Eventually the local party turned Green Line over to me, giving Asheville-area readers an independent, locally focused news source that was driven by global concerns. Over the years the monthly grew, until it morphed into the weekly Mountain Xpress in 1994. I've been its publisher since the beginning. Mountain Xpress' mission is to promote grassroots democracy (of any political persuasion) by serving the area's most active, thoughtful readers. Consider Xpress as an experiment to see if such a media operation can promote a healthy, democratic and wise community. In addition to print, today's rapidly evolving Web technosphere offers a grand opportunity to see how an interactive global information network impacts a local community when the network includes a locally focused media outlet whose aim is promote thoughtful citizen activism. Follow me @fobes

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9 thoughts on “Is North Carolina at risk? Apple’s data center reportedly uses protomatter quantum computers UPDATED

  1. Jim Donato

    Regarding Mr. Moreno’s blog, the phrase “the rantings of a madman” comes to mind. The apocalyptic sci-fi non-sequitur thrust of his blogpost [“While many ethical scientists may consider proto-matter too dangerous and unstable to use, it can be very helpful at solving certain problems when it’s stable. (A loss of stability, three years ago and then, again, last year, are what lead to the MobileMe and antenna-gate fiascoes, respectively.)”] suggests the only instability is in his skull.

    Besides, everyone knows the true threat to existence is the superconducting super collider; which everyone was told was tabled in 1993, but since then has been quietly restructuring reality ever since!!! How else to account for Sarah Palin?

  2. Josh

    Is this news? I mean, there are plenty of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories out there, why put this one out there? I’m used to Xpress reporters going out and doing actual journalism rather than reporting on quack blogs.

  3. boatrocker

    Am I performing online searches incorrectly or just a bit ignorant? Wait, don’t answer that.

    The only references to protomatter I’m finding are from the “Star Trek” movies. Is this related to project Genesis?

  4. Margaret Williams

    From Joe Moreno’s blog:

    So, last night, I posted a followup about Apple’s quantum computer that was a joke along the same lines as Google’s PigeonRank algorithm. Most techies realized, immediately, that my post about Apple’s quantum computer was a joke. However, I’m not sure if the person who submitted my blog post to Hacker News knew that it was a joke. When I woke up this morning I found that my blog post had spread to other websites such as Forbes. Forbes even quoted the last line of my gag blog post which was a quote from Star Wars.

  5. boatrocker

    Thanks Margaret for clearing up said confusing article. Even so, I must protest-

    “Star Wars” would never use protomatter. Character development was far too important for Arthur C. Clarke-like theoretical forms of energy. It was the Star Trek guys who punk’d us.

  6. Jeff Fobes

    Thanks for following up on this “staff opinion” blog that I posted this weekend. All of your skepticism was merited. While I need to wipe some egg from my face, I’m also happy to see that gathering the news is indeed becoming more of a conversation, instead of a broadcast.

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