D-Wave Python Dev Kit

Looks like D-Wave has a developer kit setup for Python, as outlined in this tutorial on their site: http://www.dwavesys.com/en/dev-tutorial-finance.html. Looks like they realized the same thing I did: to really be applicable for the commercial environment quantum computers need to be programmed via frameworks and not new quantum specific languages.

When I started work on Cove I actually started doing the implementation in both Python and C#. I quickly realized that was creating a lot of unnecessary work for myself and quickly abandoned the Python implementation. My reason for settling on C# was largely that the libraries could be used by multiple languages. However, I still think Python is a great candidate- Python's readability and simple learning curve make it a natural choice.

Quantum chip out of Bristol

They've made some recent progress at Bristol University, making a small quantum chip. Some articles:

• TechEye
• Crazy Engineers
• ZME Science
• And of course, the Bristol press release.
  

Q & A with Seth Lloyd

Here's a short question and answer with Seth Lloyd of MIT in Popular Science. As one would expect, this is more of a primer being in PopSci.

Caltech awarded funding for quantum research

Caltech awarded $12.6 million for new Institute for Quantum Information and Matter.

More progress

More progress, from the National Science Foundation: Tiny crystal towers enlighten understanding of photon emission, could inspire diamond microchips for quantum computing. (Image from the release.)

Maintaining Entanglement for an Hour

Maintaining quantum states for any length of time is one of the big challenges in quantum computing. So this news about maintaining entanglement for an hour is encouraging. (Image from the article.)

Suppressing decoherence

Some progress towards suppressing decoherence, a major stumbling block towards physical implementations of quantum computers.