Daily Archives: April 4, 2022

E.ON using IBM quantum cloud to optimise renewables – www.computing.co.uk

Posted: April 4, 2022 at 3:16 pm

Energy company E.ON is working with IBM on using quantum computing to optimise the delivery of renewable energy.

In an online media briefing last week, Victoria Ossadnik, chief operating officer - digital at E.ON SE, said the need to transition away from fossil fuels is an urgent but highly complex task.

Both supply and demand are much less predictable: renewables are affected by the weather, and heat pumps and electric vehicles (EVs) use electricity rather than gas or petrol, requiring grid upgrades and new cabling to support them. Increasingly, the cost of delivering electricity is outstripping that of generation as infrastructure creaks under the strain.

E.ON is one of Europe's largest operators of energy networks and infrastructure, running power stations, renewable generation facilities, power grids and EV charge points across Europe. The firm has a target to educe emissions by 55 per cent by 2030, and currently connects more than 40,000 renewable assets each year to a grid infrastructure that was designed for much more predictable workloads. These new sources are making the grid more and more complex and more vulnerable to failure, Ossadnik said.

Adding to this complexity is the emerging peer-to-peer energy market, where households and businesses can trade power generated from rooftop directly to consumers.

Managing decentralised power networks with potentially millions of small sources, their output varying with the weather, means staying on top of a huge number of variables. There is a limit to what even the largest supercomputer can do in this scenario, and there are some requirements that are simply beyond the bounds of classical computers, however powerful.

Optimising complex systems is a key strength of quantum computers, which is why, even though the technology is in its infancy, E.ON is getting in on the bottom rung.

It may be early days, but according to IDC analyst Stefano Perini, the quantum computing market was worth more than $700 million in 2021 and is expected to be $3.5 billion by 2025. Not huge numbers, perhaps, but an impressive rate of growth. Currently, this growth is being driven by financial services and manufacturing, but with the need for rapid decarbonisation it makes sense that energy companies get on board too.

"All these industries are united by the need to address extremely important innovation challenges around their business and operating models," Perini said. "We can expect that quantum computing will be one of the important enablers of the energy transition."

Quantum computers will play a complementary role to high performance computing (HPC) and AI rather than replacing them, said Ossadnik. Their ability to try multiple calculations at once (rather than having to iterate through the alternatives) makes them ideal for solving problems like grid balancing and optimal cable routing, where hundreds of thousands of variables may come into play. And while they are not suitable for big data, they can be very useful in designing better predictive algorithms and ML models that can incorporate many more dimensions.

Quantum computers will help ask better questions of the data, Ossadnik added, for example where to optimally lay cables in a big, crowded, historic city like Hamburg or London.

"We need to put much, much, much more cable into the ground, but you need to find out what do you really need which kind of infrastructure. This is a super complex system, because of this highly volatile demand and highly volatile supply, and with a quantum computer we can give it hundreds of thousands of little bits of information and find out which model is supported best."

Early tests using IBM's quantum cloud services have already helped improve these infrastructure models, but potential applications go further. For example, designing algorithms that can provide the right nudge factor' to ensure behaviours align with the availability of power.

"What happens when everyone charges their cars and runs their heat pumps on a cold, windless night? The next morning the city just won't have anybody going to work because unfortunately the cars are not charged. This shouldn't happen, and that means we need to control this in a super smart way. In a highly democratic society how do we do this? We need to learn which algorithm is best, how we can incentivise people to behave in the right way and to protect the energy resources in the short term, and this is where we would use quantum computing."

Heike Riel, head of science & technology and lead of IBM Research Quantum Europe, believes the technology will have a crucial role in developing other cleaner technologies. Since, at the sub-atomic level, all matter is governed by quantum physics, the ability of quantum computers to model the behaviour of atoms and molecules will be far greater than anything currently possible. This has important implications for battery design; the complex chemical processes that occur in batteries are still poorly understood.

"If we better understand all these processes we can better optimise the batteries, which means that we can reduce the weight of electric cars because you need less battery to store the same energy," she explained.

Riel offered other cases where the ability to better understand matter at the atomic scale could advance the sustainability cause. For example, the race is on to find materials that can efficiently adsorb CO2 so it can be removed from the atmosphere, and to find alternatives to energy-intensive industrial practices such as the Haber-Bosch process used to produce ammonia for fertilizer - fertilizer production consumes 3 per cent of global power.

So, tasks are already being lined up for the nascent technology to tackle, but with most current devices requiring operating temperatures around 10 milli-Kelvin ("100 times colder than outer space"), is there a risk that the energy required to refrigerate them negates the gains? Not at all said Riel, pointing out that the IBM Summit supercomputer has a peak power of 15 MW, while IBM's current quantum computers run on a 36 kW supply.

"In general it's really much lower power. Also you have to keep in mind you can solve questions in the future which you cannot even solve with a classical computer - even if you make it bigger and bigger and bigger it would just consume more and more and more power."

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Who’s News: Management Additions to the Quantum Teams at ColdQuanta, Rigetti, Multiverse, and IonQ – Quantum Computing Report

Posted: at 3:16 pm

Whos News: Management Additions to the Quantum Teams at ColdQuanta, Rigetti, Multiverse, and IonQ

ColdQuanta has named Chris Wood as VP Photonics Technologies; Alex Olivas as VP Software Engineering & Operations, Kathy Crawfordas Chief People Officer andPrateek Lalas General Counsel. Previously, Chris Wood has held various executive roles at Insight Lidar, Kapteyn-Murnane Laboratories (KLM) Inc., and Precision Photonics. Alex Olivas was previously with theUniversity of Maryland College Park. Kathy Crawford previously was the Chief People Officer at LightDeck Diagnostics and also has prior experience atLivaNova, Arca Biopharma and Thermo Fisher Scientific. And Prateek Lal was previously Deputy General Cousel at Momentus and before that Senior Legal Counsel at Luminar Technologies. He was instrumental in the closing of SPAC deals for both of those companies. You can access ColdQuantas news releases about these appointments here and here.

Rigetti Computing has added Greg Peters as Chief Revenue Officer. Peters previously held executive roles at Keysight Technologies, Agilent Technologies, and Hewlett-Packard. You can view Rigettis news release with the announcement here.

Multiverse Computing has appointed Mehdi Bozzo-Rey as Chief Revenue Officer. Bozzo-Rey most recently was with the Quantum Algorithms Institute and has also held positions at Cambridge Quantum and IBM.

And IonQ has hired Laurie Babinski as General Counsel, and Anant Sanchetee as Senior Director of Marketing. Babinski was previously Deputy General Counsel at Credit Karma and Sanchetee was Head of Brand and Product Marketing forMeta AI. IonQs press release with this announcement is available here.

April 3, 2022

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Who's News: Management Additions to the Quantum Teams at ColdQuanta, Rigetti, Multiverse, and IonQ - Quantum Computing Report

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IonQ Named As One Of TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies – Business Wire

Posted: at 3:16 pm

COLLEGE PARK, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), a leader in trapped-ion quantum computing, was named to TIMEs annual TIME100 Most Influential Companies list. This ranking highlights 100 companies that are making an extraordinary impact across the globe.

IonQ is honored to be a part of this years TIME100 Most Influential Companies list, said Peter Chapman, President and CEO of IonQ. TIMEs recognition of quantum computings impact, and its specific recognition of IonQs role as an industry leader underscores the viability and promise of whats possible as we usher in the era of quantum computing.

IonQ was selected for inclusion in the New Frontiers category. To assemble the list, TIME solicited nominations from every sectorranging from health care and entertainment to transportation and technologyfrom its editors and correspondents around the world, as well as from industry experts. TIME editors then evaluated each nominee on factors including company relevance, impact, innovation, leadership and success.

IonQ's inclusion in the TIME100 is the company's latest achievement in a year of significant momentum in business and technical breakthroughs. On Monday, IonQ announced the Companys Q4 2021 and Full Year 2021 earnings. During this announcement, the team highlighted remarkable technology progress and announced that it achieved more than triple its original bookings projection. In October, IonQ became the first publicly traded pure-play quantum computing company.

As for technical breakthroughs, this year, IonQ introduced IonQ Aria, the worlds most powerful quantum computer, based on standard application-oriented industry benchmarks; discovered a new family of quantum gates that can accelerate quantum algorithms and can only be conducted on IonQ and Duke University systems; became the first company to use barium ions as qubits to further enable advanced quantum computing architectures; and secured a public-private manufacturing partnership with Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL) to produce barium qubits. IonQ is also the only quantum hardware company with computers accessible on all three major cloud providers, and its computers are being used to tackle problems ranging from financial modeling to electric vehicle battery chemistry and risk management.

See the complete TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2022 list here: time.com/100companies

About IonQ

IonQ, Inc. is a leader in quantum computing, with a proven track record of innovation and deployment. IonQs latest generation quantum computer, IonQ Aria, is the worlds most powerful quantum computer, and IonQ has defined what it believes is the best path forward to scale.

IonQ is the only company with its quantum systems available through the cloud on Amazon Braket, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, as well as through direct API access. IonQ was founded in 2015 by Christopher Monroe and Jungsang Kim based on 25 years of pioneering research. To learn more, visit http://www.ionq.com.

About TIME

TIME is a global media brand that reaches a combined audience of more than 100 million around the world. A trusted destination for reporting and insight, TIME's mission is to tell the stories that matter most, to lead conversations that change the world and to deepen understanding of the ideas and events that define our time. With unparalleled access to the world's most influential people, the immeasurable trust of consumers globally, an unrivaled power to convene, TIME is one of the world's most recognizable media brands with renowned franchises that include the TIME100 Most Influential People, Person of the Year, Firsts, Best Inventions, World's Greatest Places and premium events including the TIME100 Summit and Gala, TIME100 Health Summit, TIME100 Next and more.

IonQ Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Some of the forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words. Statements that are not historical in nature, including the words anticipate, expect, suggests, plan, believe, intend, estimates, targets, projects, should, could, would, may, will, forecast and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements include those related to IonQ Arias technical achievements, future potential, and status in the quantum computing industry. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not limited to: market adoption of quantum computing solutions and IonQs products, services and solutions; the ability of IonQ to protect its intellectual property; changes in the competitive industries in which IonQ operates; changes in laws and regulations affecting IonQs business; IonQs ability to implement its business plans, forecasts and other expectations, and identify and realize additional partnerships and opportunities; and the risk of downturns in the market and the technology industry including, but not limited to, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent incursion into Ukraine. The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and uncertainties described in the Risk Factors section of IonQs Quarterly Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 and other documents filed by IonQ from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and IonQ assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. IonQ does not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations.

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Inside Quantum Technology Announces the First Conference and Exhibition Devoted Entirely to the Quantum Enterprise – Business Wire

Posted: at 3:16 pm

NEW YORK & SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--3DR HOLDINGS, the parent company behind Inside Quantum Technology (www.insidequantumtechnology.com) and 3DPrint.com (www.3dprint.com) has announced its latest event in a series of conferences and exhibitions dedicated entirely to Quantum Computing. Inside Quantum Technology - San Diego takes place May 10-12 in sunny Southern California at the San Diego Convention Center.

IQT San Diego will feature 90+ speakers, 34 sessions and covers nine vertical aspects of the Quantum Enterprise including aerospace, automotive, national security, enterprise and more. Jack Hidary of SandboxAQ will offer the opening keynote with other speakers covering some of the biggest names in tech and Wall Street including IBM Quantum, Amazon Web Services, Merck, MasterCard, ColdQuanta and Toshiba, just to name a few.

The event also features a hybrid format which allows for both in-person and online attendance as the world comes out of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 30 global exhibitors from around the world will take part in the festivities.

Inside Quantum Technology has long been an advocate for quantum being part of our technological great leap forward, as quantum computing and quantum safe environments are adapted in businesses and government organizations, said Alan Meckler, CEO of 3DR Holdings. We have the only quantum computing conference where the speakers are organized by a recognized expert in the field Lawrence Gasman which ensures high quality for paid attendees. In addition we expect to have the largest exhibition to date of quantum technology vendors.

Inside Quantum Technology San Diego features:

Inside Quantum Technology San Diego includes the latest online technology to help attendees meet new colleagues and discuss new opportunities in the quantum enterprise space. The event will enable attendees to simultaneously network in-person and online with speakers, exhibitors, and other attendees to exchange experiences and conduct business.

Complete program and attendance information is available at http://www.iqtevent.com.

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Spooky action in your inbox – The Next Web

Posted: at 3:16 pm

This is a special sneak preview of the Neural Newsletter. Were talking about quantum technologies, trying to figure out who observes the observers, and sharing the further adventures of Bella the puppy this week. Dont forget to sign up here so you can science up your Saturdays if you havent already.

Howdy folks,

Ive spent the past few months taking a deep dive into the quantum services industry.

What began as a quest to understand thebusinessside of quantum computing turned out to be an odyssey of discovery.

Ive been frenetically transcribing interviews (yawn), researching the market from a financial perspective (yuck!), and studying physics like nobodys business (yay!).

And the sum of my findings? Were living in the last few moments before quantum technologies become as important and commonplace as AI, the internet, and electricity.

I cant wait to share more with you over the next few months.

The last time I was this excited about a future-facing technology was when deep learning came to prominence in the wake of Ian Goodfellow (et al.)s paper on global adversarial networks.

I believe quantum technologies will have a greater impact on humanity than anything that came before including fire.

And its all coming much sooner than you think.

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Google: Backbone Of The Internet, With Moonshots Becoming A Reality – Seeking Alpha

Posted: at 3:16 pm

Sean Gallup/Getty Images News

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is a large tech giant that continues to dominate internet search with 85% of searches performed via Google. The firm has a duopoly on the online advertising market with a 27% market share, along with Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook (FB). However, what differentiates Google from Meta is their dominance in search and they also own the world's most popular web browser (Chrome at 64% share) and the world's number one mobile operating system (Android), which has a 71% market share . This makes Google the backbone of the internet and gives them the ability to call the shots.

The firm recently announced it will be removing third party tracking cookies from their Chrome browser. This may not seem like a big deal but as a digital marketer & investor, I know this is huge. Their main advertising rival Meta Platforms (Facebook) uses third party (pixel) cookies in order to track users and improve advertising results. The firm has had to rethink their entire tracking system, in order to combat the change. The way this change sent shockwaves through the internet is testament to the power Google has.

The really special thing about this company is their internet search dominance is just the tip of the iceberg. From a high growth cloud business (44% revenue growth in FY2021) to Moonshots such as autonomous driving (Waymo) and Quantum computing, the firm is poised for continued growth & has lots of optionality for the future. Given the firm has been buying back shares aggressively ($50 billion in 2021), they are poised to become the most valuable business on the planet. Lets dive into the reasons why, my valuation and risks.

Note: I will use the words Alphabet and Google interchangeably in this post to refer to the firm, for easy reading.

Alphabet is the true backbone of the internet via:

Google search (85% of search traffic)

Chrome (64% market share)

Android (71% market share)

YouTube (world's most popular video platform)

Google Services also includes Google Maps, the most popular mobile map app by downloads and Gmail which is the most popular email client. Google's dominance in the internet ecosystem is unmatched. These dominant monopoly-like backbone platforms are monetised via Google in the form of advertising, which makes up over 90% of the firm's revenues.

Alphabet has a thriving cloud unit, Google Cloud which made up 7.4% of revenues, but is the fastest growing part of the business (44% revenue growth FY2021). Google Cloud is currently the third largest cloud provider (10% market share) behind Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Google has always had a culture of experimentation and taking calculated bets, such as Waymo, the self-driving car unit and even Quantum computing. These types of bets are called Moonshots by Google and although not generating significant cash flows yet, they represent heaps of optionality in the stock. Alphabet is currently investing over $31 billion per year in these "Other Bets". This is a large amount of capital but still only makes up a slither of revenues, 0.2% of annual turnover.

Google Revenue Breakdown (Created by author Motivation 2 Invest)

Waymo, is one of the business units that could disrupt the entire transport industry with its self-driving vehicles. The global autonomous market was valued at $76.13 billion in 2020, and is projected to reach a ginormous $2.1 trillion by 2030, which is a massive CAGR of 40.1% between 2021 to 2030.

Waymo is a leader in the industry and not just a theoretical firm like many others out there right now. The firm already has working autonomous vehicle operations right now in Arizona, for the average person. Yeah, thats right. You can download Waymo One, the ride-hailing app and hail your very own self-driving vehicle with no human driver. But that's not all. Waymo announced very recently (March 30th 2022) they are rolling out self-driving operations in San Francisco. Employees of Waymo and people who sign up for the Trusted Testers program can now hail fully autonomous vehicles. This is a game changer as similar to the traditional ride-hailing business such as Uber & Lyft, market dominance is determined by capturing the major cities. I also noticed Waymo's marketing has improved substantially on their website and it is now truly offering a strong consumer value proposition.

The firm also has Waymo Via solution for autonomous trucking, which is set to address the major logistics challenges, such as truck driver shortages & dangerous accidents. Waymo recently announced a partnership with C.H. Robinson, one of the worlds largest logistics platforms, which will give the firm vast access to data & testing lanes.

Quantum computing is another Moonshot which is further away but offers huge optionality for the future. A couple of years back Alphabet created a quantum computer which achieved quantum supremacy, outperforming a traditional computer for a specific complex calculation. More recently Google opened a quantum computer data center and R&D lab, where they plan to build a commercial grade quantum computer (1 million qubits) by 2029.

In addition, Alphabet recently announced the acquisition of Madiant, a leader in cyber security for $5.4 billion. This expands Alphabets reach into another high growth, high TAM market, as well as helping to protect their own core business.

Alphabets Financials are tremendous, the firm brought in $257 billion in 2021, up an astonishing 41% year over year. For a company of this scale, that is truly astonishing. Operating profit nearly doubled also from $41 billion in 2020 to $78 billion in 2021, with a high 33% operating margin. The firm has a strong Return on Capital of 26% and Return on Equity of 32%.

Google Financials (Created by author at Y Charts)

Google Cloud is also getting closer to profitability and if they continue to grow at a similar rate, they will hit a $100 billion in revenue run rate by 2025. If Google Cloud can achieve a 20% operating margin, which is lower than AWS at 30%, they would add an extra $20 billion to Alphabet's income.

Alphabet margins (created by author at Ycharts)

The firms balance sheet is a fortress and they have what I believe to be the largest cash position of any other stock on the planet, with $139.4 billion as of Q42021. Amazon (AMZN) comes closest with a merger of $96 billion in cash & cash equivalents. This large cash position has been criticised by many on Wall Street, however this does offer the opportunity for continued buybacks (over $50 billion) in 2021. This would put Alphabet on a similar path to Apple (AAPL) which has invested close to $500 billion in buybacks, reducing their stock by 35% which helped to boost their market cap to $2.84 trillion.

I have valued Alphabet using my advanced valuation model, which uses the discounted cash flow method of valuation. This takes into account the company's R&D investment, lease obligations, employee options and more.

Alphabet Valuation (Created by author at Motivation 2 invest)

I have been very conservative with my estimates of growth, estimating 10% for next year and 8% for the next 2 to 5 years. I have predicted the pre-tax operating margins to hold steady at 33%

Alphabet Valuation (Created by author at Y charts)

From this calculation I get a fair value of Alphabet of $1.7 trillion, with a stock valuation (pre-split) of $2649. The stock dropped below this fair value to $2597/share just a few weeks ago but has now spiked up by 7% as the market recognised the discount. Today the stock trades at 6% over the fair value, as of the time of writing.

In terms of a relative valuation against other FAANG stocks (excluding Netflix), Alphabet trades at one of the lowest P/E Ratios 24, which is lower than both Apple (P/E = 28) and Amazon (P/E = 67). Only Meta Platforms trades cheaper (P/E Ratio = 18), but they have recently had user growth declines.

PE Ratio Tech Stocks (Created by author at Y Charts)

The same story is true for EV/EBITDA multiples with Alphabet trading at the 2nd cheapest (EV to EBITDA = 14) compared to other big tech stocks, Amazon (EV to EBITDA = 19) and Apple (EV to EBITDA = 22).

EV to EBITDA (Created by author at Y Charts)

Alphabet currently makes over 90% of their revenues from their advertising business. Now although this has been a great cash generator so far, the firms revenue base is not diversified and that is a major risk. This risk became apparent in 2020, when the global pandemic caused advertisers to reduce ad spending, which caused the stock to sell off. I personally saw this as a buying opportunity, but it still is a risk moving forward. The firm's other business units such as Google Cloud and even a few Moonshot bets are starting to pay off. So, I expect this risk to get less moving forward.

The advertising market is vast and competitive. Google dominates along with Meta (Facebook); however, their market share is starting to be eaten by Amazon Ads. From the graph below, it is clear to see a declining trend in Googles market share from 31.6% in 2019 to an expected 26% by 2023, while Amazon's Advertising market share is expected to double to 14.6%. Then there are disruptive social media platforms such as TikTok and programmatic advert providers such as Taboola and Outbrain, which are starting to gain traction.

Large tech firms globally are in the sights of regulators & governments, who are intent on challenging their market power. Google faces multiple antitrust cases, including one which alleges the firm abuses its market power on the mobile app store. There is a violation tracker online which shows the multiple fines and lawsuits Google has been given, one of which was $500 million!

I personally believe the large amount of cash on Googles balance sheet makes the firm a greater target. Despite the amount of lawyers & legal compliance the firm goes through, there will always be this cost of doing business. You could call this death by 1000 paper cuts, which is a real threat to gigantic firms and could stifle innovation.

Alphabet is a tremendous tech giant which is the true backbone of the internet. Google has a virtual monopoly on internet search and a strong core advertising business. The firm's cloud business is growing fast & is expected to become profitable in the next few years. Whereas Googles Moonshot opportunities are starting to hit major milestones, with the likes of Waymo making strong progress in major cities. Alphabets financial position is powerful and they have what I estimate to be the largest cash position of any global firm. With a series of immense buybacks lined up and many tailwinds ahead, this firm has the potential to become the most valuable business on the planet.

The stock is currently trading at 6% above my fair value, but is still relatively cheap compared to other large tech firms. Thus, Google is an ideal company to park cash in, as a long-term investment, despite being slightly overvalued. However, should the firm have another pullback that will offer a greater opportunity to load up the truck.

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Is the XX messenger the future of private communication? – CNBCTV18

Posted: at 3:16 pm

While most messaging apps promise end-to-end encryption, they suffer from 2 fundamental flaws.

Firstly, they are usually governed by a central authority and depend on centralized servers. These servers store all the metadata of your conversations and are vulnerable to attacks. Further, the central authority also controls your data, and they can use it as they deem fit.

The second problem is that end-to-end encryption will become obsolete once we enter the age of quantum computing (more on this later).

To address these issues, a new generation of messaging apps has emerged. They are decentralized, quantum-resistant and will effectively future-proof private communication. And at the forefront of these up-and-coming messaging apps is the xx messenger.

The xx network

The xx network is a full-stack platform with a layer one blockchain that is quantum resistant. It is one of the most private communications networks in the world right now. One unique aspect of the network is that its communication layer even obfuscates the metadata of your chats. This provides an added level of security.

Any application or blockchain platform can route its traffic to the xx network for secure and quantum-proofed end-to-end communication.

The crowning jewel of the network is its decentralized messaging application, xx messenger. It embodies all the features that the xx network promises. It is an end-to-end quantum secure messaging application that obfuscates metadata.

Both the xx network and the messenger are the creation of David Chaum, a computer scientist and cryptographer known as the 'godfather of cryptocurrency'. In 1982, way before Satoshi Nakamoto published his now-famous white paper, Chaum published a dissertation titled, "Computer Systems Established, Maintained, and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups,". This was the first blockchain protocol to exist.

Features of the xx messenger

xx messenger is not just a proof-of-concept utilizing state of the art quantum technology; it is a full-fledged messenger with modern features expected from any top-of-the-line messaging application. It offers popular features such as group chats, audio, and video sharing. It is also very easy to sign up on xx messenger. You do not have to link an existing account, number, or email ID.

Instead, you only have to provide a pseudonym. This makes it free from any form of real-world identification. The application only relies on its underpinning privacy-preserving technology to give users the ultimate privacy communication experience.

The quantum computing problem

We have repeatedly used the phrase quantum protected or quantum proofing, but to really appreciate this feature, we must understand what quantum computing refers to in this context.

Quantum computing applies the principle of quantum physics to the world of computers. Quantum physics relates to understanding problems and physical concepts at atomic and sub-atomic levels. The working of a computer or its smallest unit, a transistor, can also be put in terms of quantum physics.

Today's computers use the binary digits - 0 and 1 - as the most basic levelled instructions. In machine language, 1 refers to a true statement, and 0 refers to a false statement. A combination of these digits can be used to form complex instructions, and that is how all computer instructions are formed.

But due to the concept of 'Quantum superposition', it is possible for a machine to read both digits simultaneously. While quantum computers do not exist now, experts believe that it is only a matter of time before they do. These computers will be extremely powerful and would be able to crack the encryption standards we use today in minutes.

Chaum and his team at xx network have developed a quantum secure consensus algorithm known as xxBFT consensus to circumvent this problem.

The consensus model ensures that the network is protected from quantum computing attacks. The application's message mixing protocol called xx Cmix ensures that encryption cannot be broken and also provides a metadata shredding feature.

A decentralized network

On the other side of privacy is decentralization. It ensures that no organization, third-party or even the xx network itself can access a sender's or recipient's data. The xx messenger is built on top of the decentralized xx network.

The xx network uses a randomly selected pool of nodes on the network to help encrypt messages in sets of 1,000. The nodes continuously shuffle these messages and encrypt them. The nodes have an incentive to participate in the encryption they are rewarded in the blockchain's native currency for their effort in securing the network.

The xx network is also an open-source platform, meaning anyone with the technical know-how can contribute to the network and any application on it, including the xx messenger. The source code of the application is written in the Golang programming language.

The xx messenger aims to fill a gap in the market by providing a decentralized and quantum secure infrastructure that is robust and easy to use. The application is currently available on both IOS and Android Play Store for download.

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Emily St. John Mandel and Jia Tolentino Look at the Future – ELLE

Posted: at 3:15 pm

Waistcoat, $2,595, blouse, $1,185, Simone Rocha.

Marco GIannavola

When have we ever believed that the world wasnt ending? asks a character in Emily St. John Mandels Sea of Tranquility. Theres always something. At a time when that fear is so acutely alive, the question is revelatory.

Depending on how you look at it, Emily St. John Mandel is either a remarkably prescient writer or simply a student of history who recognized that pandemics are an inevitable part of life. Her award-winning 2014 novel Station Eleven, set in a world in which 99 percent of humanity has perished, debuted as a television series just as America was nearing the end of a second full year coexisting with COVID. Mandels The Glass Hotel, which centers on a Ponzi scheme, had an unfortunate release date of March 24, 2020. Rather than traveling to promote it, she spent much of lockdown writing her latest novel, Sea of Tranquility (out April 5). The expansive book features a time-shifting plot that explores pandemics, moon colonization, time travel, and, perhaps most brilliantly, the idea that the basic rhythms of daily life carry us along even as our circumstances shift into unrecognizable forms. While Mandel focuses on many of the things that terrify us, she also illustrates how hope and humanity are flames that can never be fully extinguished. Recently, she sat down with Jia Tolentino, author of the acclaimed essay collection Trick Mirror, for a wide-ranging conversation on isolation, the future, and finding beauty in the mundane.Adrienne Gaffney

Jia Tolentino: Sea of Tranquility is the name of a waterless plain on the moons surface, which, in your novel, has been colonized in a remarkably humane way. The moon colonies have rivers, scheduled rainfalls. There are defects, accidents, but there is no sense that there is a sort of Bezos-masterminded inequality-magnifier extractive plunder operation.

Emily St. John Mandel: Its not perfect, as you say. But its a little bit utopian. The state of being on the moon itself is a somewhat utopian vision, the kind of antiStation Eleven. Civilization didnt collapse into nothingnesswe made it to the moon.

JT: And in this book, even further.

EM: I wrote Sea of Tranquility during lockdown in 2020, whichyou know what it was like. The constant sirens, that sense of death all around. For me, it was the feeling of being stuck in my apartment, wondering if I would see my family again, after years in which I traveled constantly without a second thought, barely noticing when I was on a plane. I found myself just imagining this beautiful place that was really, really far from my apartment. That was a way to leave the neighborhoodto imagine myself on the moon. And youre right, I hadnt thought of it in terms of the corporate-dystopian nightmare it probably would be in real life. Colony Two by Amazon. Who else has the money to do that? But I needed to think through, How good could it be? I was thinking in terms of creating a beautiful space and trying to imagine a peaceful [place] that is as far away as humanly possible. There are a lot of dystopic science fiction stories where theres some insanely oppressive government doing X terrible thing. It was just nice to imagine a space that was fairly Earth-like in the sense of being not particularly heaven or particularly hell. Its a place, its got problems; its mostly fine most of the time, but not always.

JT: Its a little funny that were talking about it as utopianyou dont go into great detail in the book, but its assumed that cataclysmic climate events on Earth have spurred this moon colonization. Huge portions of the world are uninhabitable.

EM: Yes, in my hypothetical year 2203, its not that all is lostits that there are lots of new countries, and parts of the world cant be lived in anymore. And What am I doing for dinner? and I really miss my familythese human things that I think would remain.

Marco GIannavola

JT: Its especially visible in the HBO Max adaptation of Station Eleven, the way youve rendered stately and humane some of the exact scenarios that keep us up at 4 a.m. when we roll over and look at a new climate report on our phones. You foreground a standpoint that is optimistic in that it is concerned with the beauty of mundane human existence. Are you writing yourself toward that standpoint to reinforce it, or is it native to the way you see the world?

EM: Its fairly native to the way I see the world. Partly because, when I first started out as a writer, I was very conscious that character development was a weak spot for me, so I developed an obsessive interest in the way people respond and the things they notice. And its hard to say something like this without sounding really pretentious, but I do find myself caught up in and in love with the details of the world. It probably comes through clearest in that one chapter in Station Eleven that I probably have memorized, which is just a list of things [that no longer exist]No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. In writing about the moon colony, I was still just thinking about what people value, and the larger question of what comprises a life. Its these details, and you put them together, and thats your day, your month, your year, your lifetime.

JT: You mentioned in another interview that you had wanted to write about technology with Station Eleven, and you ended up doing that through writing about its absence. Was there any equivalent subjectsomething you wrote about through absencewith Sea of Tranquility?

EM: In Station Eleven I found myself thinking about how incredibly small your world would become in the absence of the internet or other telecommunication systems. Your whole field of knowledge would be about a hundred square miles around you. You would belong to a very specific place. That would be lost in a world like that of Sea of Tranquility, where you could live anywhere, including the Andromeda galaxy. Especially if you carry that forward to time travel. Can life be meaningful without constraints?

JT: There is in fact something beautiful about being bounded, trapped with your family. In imagining its opposite, you have the beauty of confinement come through.

EM: During the early months of the pandemic in particular, I was so aware of trying to create a little, magical, self-contained world inside my apartment for my daughter, whos almost six. I think thats a project most parents were engaged in. That was very real.

Can life be meaningful without constraints?

JT: This novel includes something like autofictiona narrative that exists in the section about [the character] Olive Llewellyn, an author who wrote a best-selling pandemic novel called Marienbad. Olive is on an endless book tour, with all its attendant depersonalizations, the self-aggrandizement that comes from speaking onstage, and also the minor degradations. In one scene, a business traveler traps Olive in a monologue about his career, then asks her what she does for a living, and when she says she writes books, he reflexively asks: For children?

EM: That was a guy in the airport in Amsterdam.

JT: I felt sure that that was a guy somewhere. It must have been tonally difficult to write about all that.

EM: Absolutely. I wasnt sure what it was at firstmaybe a personal essay I would never publish, maybe fiction. Ive just had the sense for some time that Ive been leading a very strange life, even as I have incredible gratitude for it. Still, there are regularly these little sexist moments. What happens to me at almost every onstage event is that an interviewer will ask me what message people should take away from Station Eleven. Ill explain that I did not write it with a message in mind, and theyll say, Are you sure?

And Im like, Yes, I am actually sure. I am the expert on this particular book.

Marco GIannavola

JT: Theres one sentence in particular: In Shanghai, Olive spent a combined total of three hours talking about herself and her book, which meant talking about the end of the world while trying not to imagine the world ending with her daughter in it. I was thinkingyou wrote Station Eleven before youd had a baby, but went on a book tour after?

EM: I found out I was pregnant at the Auckland Writers Festival, told my husband over FaceTime, and kept touring until I was seven months pregnant. And to be honestand Im not proud of thisI dont think I could have written Station Eleven after having a child, because of exactly that: Imagining the end of the world means imagining the death of everyone you love.

JT: Theres this attraction in your work to transitory spaces, like airport terminals and hotel lobbies. You seem to have an interest in the kind of human presence that is revealed in these places where people are passing through. I share this attraction in terms of watching and noticing. What is it about these spaces?

EM: Theres something in that that fascinates me just in terms of the possibility of interacting with people. Maybe having a nice moment, or just seeing them, or maybe its even less than that, and then never crossing paths again. Its not like your neighborhood coffee shop, where youre going to run into people. You walk by the guy from Des Moines and thats it, the only interaction.

JT: Theres something about the way these spaces are positioned within the narratives of your last three novels, in particular, that also just suggests an essential fact of transience about our lives. Its another way of suggesting a level of scale that renders us individually and not unpleasantly insignificant. Its like were in many senses just passing through. We pass through an airport terminal as lightly as we, from at least a planetary scale, pass through the world.

EM: One of my favorite Tom Waits songs has the lyric The world is not my home, Im just a passin thru. Theres something of that in the experience of all these characters. I dont know if that just comes from me thinking about fictional characters that pass through the length of a book, or if it is just a broader interest in mortality and what it means to only be on this planet for, like, a flash of light and were gone and the world moves on without us. That sounds so morbid and depressive, which Im not, but it is what I think about.

JT: I dont think its morbid at all. I think its like the writer John McPhees metaphor that you could take the entire existence of the Earth and itd be the length of someones arm, and you could snip off the fingernail and you would cut off the entirety of human existence. I find that really freeing.

EM: Absolutely. This whole thing is so small.

JT: In this novel, a sense of mystical chance and unity is rooted in the possibility that were straight-up living in a simulation.

EM: Its possible that the experience of writing a novel has seeped into the contents of the novel. Theres something about the way novels have a sense of limitless possibility for me when I start writing themI feel its starting to creep into the structure, where there are these shadow novels under the novel. The only way to really make time travel work for me, and maybe this is a cognitive limitation on my part, was to imagine that were in a simulation. I dont know whether to keep thinking about these endless possibilities of narrative, and to keep expressing them in the weirdness thats crept into my work nowthe element about the nature of reality and the possibility of multiple universes and the shadow lives we didnt liveor to just pull it together and go back to something more straightforward.

JT: Straightforward? Oh, I vote for the weirdness.

This article appears in the April 2022 issue of ELLE.

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Emily St. John Mandel and Jia Tolentino Look at the Future - ELLE

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Ways Marvel Lied To You About Moon Knight – Looper

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Nearly every aspect of Moon Knight's character fluctuates often and dramatically, so it's no surprise that the style and scale of his adventures fluctuate too. At his core, Moon Knight is a street-level hero, prowling the streets of New York City by night, battling crooks with martial arts and simple melee weapons. Even in the majority of his team-ups, Moon Knight remains grounded in smaller stakes (pun intended, given all the vampires he fights), mainly allying with fellow street-level heroes like Spider-Man, Punisher, Luke Cage, and the Black Cat.

But Moon Knight has another side. When he's more directly in Khonshu's control, or fighting alongside one of the Avengers teams, he enters a far different world many of them, in fact. He was one of the heroes to take part in the intergalactic events of 1992's "Infinity War" and 2018's "Infinity Wars." He has time-traveled on multiple occasions, like his trip to the ancient homeland of Conan the Barbarian in 2019's "Serpent War." During "Age of Khonshu," he even gained the powers of the Iron Fist, Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider, Thor, and the Phoenix Force, all in an effort to fight Marvel's literal Devil, Mephisto. The shift in setting and tone between Moon Knight stories can be intense, but can also lead to some top-tier moments.

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In a world of lies, Sulphur Springs poet Negasi sifts for the truth – Creative Loafing Tampa

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click to enlarge

c/o Negasi

An African mask owned by Tampa poet Negasi.

This collaborative event, sponsored by the University of South Floridas African-African American Burial Grounds Project, Kitchen Table Literary Arts, Sulphur Springs Heritage Museum and The Battleground youth program, was held during Black History Month in the Sulphur Springs neighborhood as an effort to help remember the injustice of erasure as we move forward.

Memory is tricky at times. I frequently forget who I am, who I truly am at the core. I forget that at my core, I am indestructible, boundless, worthy of deep respect. Often, I also forget that this same core exists in other people, even if on the surface they dont seem to possess it.

Like tree roots that are entwined and connected through the same source beneath the soil, we are connected through a network that we cant always see directly but experience evidence of its existence. And on the surface level, we can see the ways in which we grow, what we have endured, what we may offer to others.

The collective and specific experiences of a culture and peoples are expressions of this universal principle. It is not by diminishing or eradicating specificity where we find the dignity of all lifeit is by delving into it. Some have the misconception that acknowledging the realities of race and gender causes more division. It is quite the opposite. Because to deny the specific lived experiences of people, especially those experiences that shine a light on oppression and the mechanisms that support it, is to deny their humanity, their dignity.

We often forget as a collective. We forget the patterns that continue to repeat over time, proven over and over again. Just as the universal principle that binds us all can express tremendous value and good, there is also an inherent and incessant flip side to this, manifested as ignorance. This is why the act of remembering is so vital.

As we stood together at the event, including everyone who was seated, young and old, Black and white, academic and blue-collar, I called attention to how this moment encompasses past, present and future. And how we are acting against the cycles of oppression by writing our own stories and making sure we are heard. I thought about the insidious nature of gentrification and how under the guise of bettering a community, it actually operates to bulldoze a culture and the people who have created that culture, similar to colonization.

A couple of the boys who Ive supported ever since I started working in Sulphur Springs are moving out of the neighborhood. Their family was forced out due to drastically rising rent prices.

As I dropped them off at their Sulphur Spring home after they attended the We Will Not Be Erased event, I asked them how they feel about having to move. They said terrible. They grew up there, they grew up in that house. I told them that to me, they are Sulphur Springs. It wont be the same without them. They will take with them their brilliance, their creativity, their keen perception, their generous hearts, their sense of humor.

The Hispanic-looking man who had approached as I set-up for the We Will Not be Erased event told me that he had recently bought some property in the area. Not a home, property. Not a community member, but an owner. It was clear from the antagonistic response he paid to me when I told him about the event that he had accidentally stumbled upon, that he wasnt entering the neighborhood with an understanding of and respect for the people who already lived there. My answer to him? Black.

Of course, Black people are not the only ones who have been erased, whether through building upon their bodies or stealing their culture. We know that our Indigenous brothers and sisters have experienced incalculable loss at the hands of invaders as well as all the injustices experienced by other cultures that have been colonized by white people, whether British, French, Dutch or Spanish.

If we are to change the patterns of oppression that have continued, we will have to maintain constant vigilance and call out whenever we see the same pattern starting to emerge. Real estate developers and buyers who have no regard for the culture or the people of a neighborhood, especially when the culture and people are those who have historically become colonized and oppressed, better think otherwise. Stay your asses out.

I dont carry guns, but I do educate youth. And in a greater sense, I think thats the most powerful weapon. For this installment of Poets Notebook, I would like to amplify the voice of my very first poetry student from The Battleground, a bright young man who lives in Sulphur Springs who goes by Negasi.

In a world of lies, I sift for the truth.

So l dig myself out the dirt then go to the river and float down to where the Metal towers parlay and pursuit. Poisoning the hands that feed them.

Building luxury decked out in blood and bones. A civilization erased, but the bones and spirit never leaves its place... the blood erodes the infrastructure.

If the dead cannot rest neither can the living. The end is to come but so what. Find your heart space be in where you choose to end up by your judgment.

Civilizations Rise and Fall but the ones who survive are the ones who listen to the hearts. The unseen voices of your connection to the bones of course.

We are Not doing this for no reason. As long as youre going towards your true goals you change the world and you change the most important thingyourself.

Allow the bones to work its ways. Then prepare to work towards the true future you seek as one tree falls a seed is left in its place. We are in a time now where the bones won't be forced down as foundation anymore.

The bones at night has the blue screaming red as white fades away. Bones of every unheard voice quakes the times ticks closer the bones grow stronger and a new tree is grown in place.

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