Quantum mechanics describes how nature works at a fundamental level. Using those principles to build a quantum computer doesn’t just mean working at the nanoscale level; it also means keeping everything cold enough to see quantum effects. That’s why D-Wave runs its Orion system at a temperature 250 times colder than interstellar space.
Last year the company had a 16-qubit quantum computer that founder and CTO Geordie Rose claimed was the most powerful quantum computer ever built and the first ever to run commercially-relevant applications. This year it has 28 qubits, it can recognise photos of famous landmarks – and you might soon be able to use it over the Web.
That’s far ahead of most other quantum computing developments and D-Wave has managed it by using semiconductor manufacturing techniques and existing chip fabs instead of optical circuits, quantum dots, laser containment or other approaches requiring exotic manufacturing techniques. D-Wave is also working on the other half of the problem; the programming tools for writing applications that take advantage of what quantum computing promises to deliver.
Rose defines a quantum computer as “a machine that harnesses the language of nature at the most fundamental level to gain, in some cases, extremely impressive performance gains over conventional computers. Computers are constrained by the laws of physics; what you can do with information is no more than the laws of physics, when you operate at classical level. On a quantum computer, information processing is done on devices that obey the laws of quantum mechanics. These things can be very small and very cold, and they can be built out of exotic materials.”

My computers don't even have a real "OS", they have micro kernels which only have one program installed, and that program is specifically crafted to fit inside the 256KB of L2 Cache on the IBM Cell Processor to prevent the system having to page regular, slow, system RAM.
The stuff is written in C, and then hand-tuned in assembler.
That does not mean the development is not exciting, its just that like most major science changes, the action is far from the end user and it will take products a while to trickle down to something we use everyday. Ironically, by the time it gets to us, most people will have no idea which technologies brought them to fruition in the first place.
I WANT TO SEE THAT THING PWN SOME GAMES >< I KNOW A LITTEL OVER BOARD BUT I CANT DREAM CANT I?
BTW what does it matter who got first post anyway? lol
Quantum Physics are laws that are far more complex than regular everyday Physics. They do not defy but rather redefine and enhance our understanding of physics at a much smaller scale (Smaller than atom size)
My computers don't even have a real "OS", they have micro kernels which only have one program installed, and that program is specifically crafted to fit inside the 256KB of L2 Cache on the IBM Cell Processor to prevent the system having to page regular, slow, system RAM.
The stuff is written in C, and then hand-tuned in assembler.
That does not mean the development is not exciting, its just that like most major science changes, the action is far from the end user and it will take products a while to trickle down to something we use everyday. Ironically, by the time it gets to us, most people will have no idea which technologies brought them to fruition in the first place.
You might have a good idea when the OC competition ensues. I'm sure you'll have some guys throwing -200C nitrogen at 8500's.
Unfortunately it will NOT be able to play Crysis at 60FPS.
duke nukem 3d run at 954,555 fps!! that is, my friends, is what they call... THE S#$%!