Philips Electronics' corporate design department has been studying products that might be practical in 5-10 years. "Super-smart cards," for instance. You can see models and rationale on . [Peter Fletcher , alt.technology.misc, 9/23/96.]

Quantum computing is still impractical, but intriguing in theory. See the 4/12/96 issue of Science for an optimistic article. A 64 quantum-bit ("qubit") processor would perform operations on all 64-bit numbers at once -- 2^64 operations. Error-correcting computations have now been devised, overcoming commonly cited obstacles; see Cira, Pellizzari, and Zoller's article in the 8/30/96 issue. There's also an 8/23 article by Seth Lloyd about using quantum computers to model interactions of large numbers of particles. N electrons could be simulated with N qubits and O(N) operations, in time proportional to real time. (A conventional computer would require memory and time proportional to 2^2N.) The first known quantum algorithm was for factoring large numbers. Factoring a 100-digit number would require millions of quantum logical operations, but might be feasible. Another algorithm, recently discovered, could find a random list element in the square root of N steps, vs. N/2 on average for a conventional computer. Particle simulation has an advantage in that it's tolerant of errors and noise. A wide variety of atomic, molecular, and semiconductor quantum devices are available, and quantum simulation may soon be practical. Further, running a quantum computer in reverse might be a shortcut to creating a mechanical micromanipulator. The US military is taking this seriously enough to put $5M into an institute for quantum information and computing (QUIC). [John K. Clark , comp.theory, 9/17/96.]

For information on evolvable hardware -- e.g., for genetic algorithms -- see , , , or . [Adrian Thompson , comp.ai.genetic, 8/30/96.]

CyberMedia Inc. and Phoenix Technologies are working on PCs that would heal themselves. Diagnostic routines would identify corrupt driver software, etc., and other routines in the BIOS operating system would repair the damage. Phoenix plans to license this to motherboard manufacturers early next year. [IW, 9/23/96, p. 15. EDUPAGE.] (A related development is smart networks that monitor CPU temperatures and vital signs, helping direct maintenance efforts.)

Apple Fellow Donald Norman says we are seeing the dawn of computing's third generation. Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) characterized the second generation, but so did increasing complexity. The third generation will be embedded in the context of tasks to be accomplished. [IW, 9/23/96, p. 48. EDUPAGE.]

(Edupage is written by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas . Many of the news items cover Canada or telecommunications, others are of general interest. To subscribe, send a "subscribe edupage your name" message to .)

The UK's Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology is charged with providing balanced and objective analysis of science and technology-based issues. Present and past reports can be found on . [James Porteous , inet-news, 9/12/96.]