This is an interesting article about a useable memory storage technique for quantum computing.

http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?type=article&article_id=218392702

The ability to store photons and release them in a controlled fashion with the information they carry intact is a major step toward the eventual production of quantum computers. The storage time is limited to a few seconds so far, but that is enough to make it possible to do computations. The ability to store information in more than binary format will allow much more information to be stored in the same number of bytes.
Eventually this will lead to much faster and more powerful computers.

Yeah, we've actually already made some quantum calculations, I saw the article a week back.

As of yet, it is unlikely quantum computers will make it into your living room anytime in the next fifty years. The tech is just far too expensive and is likely to be relegated to only the most moneyed customers in the times to come. I imagine they'll be scrutinized very carefully, given quantum computing's power to trivially break today's toughest encryptions.

I would actually look to optical computing if you want to see something that's really cool. Imagine taking all the limitations of conventional computing and tossing them out the window. That is what computing with photons can do for all of us, and in a much more reasonable timeframe.

It was about 50 years ago that experts predicted that the U.S. would eventually need about 4 computers, and that the price would be so large that they would never be practical for anyone but the government to own. The development of the transistor changed that, and incremental progress has put a computer on every desk that far outclass the early vaccuum tube models. We have found uses for the computational power that we never imagined then.
Optical computing is cool, and quantum computing is an extension of it. The vast computational power that we will have will be used. I don't know for what yet, but I am certain that uses will be found for it. Better encryption techniques will be found. More information will be processed more quickly than ever, and everyone will end up owning a quantum computer as the cost decreases.

50 years ago, we had no idea what digital technology was. Today, we have a much sharper idea of what new technology entails. It is a much different world now, Imagineer. What limits quantum computing to high-cost situations is not a lack of materials this time, but the laws of physics.

Fifty years ago the development of solid state computer chips was not only technologically beyond us, but many reputable scientists would have said that they violated our understanding of physics and chemistry. Our understanding of those things changed. I predict that in the next fifty years they will change again.
What we "know" is not set in stone, it continually changes. Even Albert Einstein proudly proclaimed that the theory of relativity was not the last word. He was proud that his theory produced results that had only half the magnitude of error that Newton's gravitation showed in the observed motion of the planets.
Quantum Mechanics and Particle Physics is in a state where a revision of the theory is needed, much as Astrophysics needed a major overhaul in 1900. There are ridiculous complications that are needed to patch together the framework of Quantum Mechanics in the face of baffling experimental results. Sooner or later, and probably within the next fifty years, someone will figure out what everyone has been missing and explain many of the results that baffle us now.
I can't tell you what that advance will be, but it will happen. When it does, the impossible will become possible, and then routine.

Do you seriously think that even if we found these things, even if we discovered the "Theory of Everything", (a joke if I ever heard it) do you think that will magically give us the power to just use it like that? Fusion technology has been around for decades, but we aren't even close to being able to implement it so we can even get power! I seriously doubt we'll go from the internet to Star Trek in a few decades.

There is no "Theory of Everything" right now because one doesn't exist. Physics is running smack up against these things called complex systems that make it impossible to probe any further. The very nature of the universe is uncertainty. These ridiculous complications you are talking about are not holes in our understanding, they are holes in our way of thinking. It is not possible to be completely determinalistic about the universe, no matter how hard we try.

There are dozens of theories on how the universe works. All of them are wrong. All they will ever be is incomplete models. The true nature of the universe will forever be unknowable.

Advance we will, but we are running into the problem where all the easy stuff is already taken. the last 1% of a system is just as hard as the first 99% was to crack. And when we crack 99% of that last 1%, guess how hard the rest is going to be?

You are speaking from a naive viewpoint that fails to appreciate the real understandings made in the last few years. They have not been real advances, but changes to our paradigm. Uncertainty cannot be eliminated or abstracted away.

We are a long way from having a theory of everything. I do not think the next advance will be that. I was referring to the experimental results showing the ability for electrons to move faster than the speed of light when crossing a Josephson Junction and when moving from one electron shell to another in an atom. I think when we understand how that can be, we will have made a monumental advance.
That none of our theories are correct is a given. They are attempts to take the next step not the final solution to everything. We should and indeed must continue to work at understanding the universe. Yes it is difficult, but much depends on having someone who has that moment when they understand something everyone else has missed.
You are correct in stating that just having a theory does not instantly lead to using that insight in technology. That takes more years of development. We are not instantly going to advance to the level of Star Trek, and I certainly never claimed we would.
What I do think is that we will do things in the future, that we can hardly even imagine now. I think that because I have seen it happen in my lifetime, and I see no reason that progress will stop now. I remember as a young child seeing a steam locomotive in comercial service on the railroad, television was black and white and presented on a tiny screen in the front of a large cabinet full of vacuum tubes. If you thought humans could ever really travel in space, people would have questioned your sanity.
No it isn't easy, but it will happen.

Ah, jest try knockin' "Star Trek" 'n watch the Spocks begin ta fly...



www.a-perpetual-emotion-machine.edu




;)

Uhura knock of the Enterprising science in what I say? Sulu a blow to the Federation will not pass my lips while there is flesh on my Bones.

;)

Can't wait for this one. Its amazing where this is headed.