Peach Flowers

This flower image was shot at 11:00 am this morning.

Quantum Computing Demo

A startup company called DWave recently demonstrated a 16-qubit quantum computer for commercial use. They showed two applications:

• pattern matching
• planning/scheduling

Both are well known NP-complete problems, which previous researchers have found efficient solutions on (theoretical) quantum computers.

It's tax time

"'In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." -- Benjamin Franklin

The 3 top rated tax preparation software are:

1. TurboTax
2. TaxCut
3. TaxAct

However, beware of the various versions/packages that comes with these softwares. TurboxTax is priced in at least 4 different categories: Basic, Deluxe, Premier, and Home & Business. Depending which combo package you are shopping, you may also have to pay addition for the accompanying state tax and e-file options.

Imagine what will happen if the government switch to a flat tax system. A lot of accountants, lawyers, and some tax software companies will be in trouble getting new businesses.

Internet TV

Joost.com, the internet broadband TV based on peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, has been live on Beta for a few weeks. Here is a sample screen shot published from their website:


It was formerly known as the Venice project, which was backed by the founders of Skype.

Let's just wait and see how the TV industry will evolve after this.

Immigrants are the backbone of US tech innovation

A recent study shows that foreign nationals living in the United States have the largest share of patent application filings in the United States. Chinese engineers were the largest group of patent filers, with 26.8% of filings, followed by Indians with 21%.

Ron Hira of IEEE (USA) and vice president of career services points out the contribution of foreign born engineers to the U.S. economy:

"One of the most important policy conclusions is that highly skilled immigrants play an important role in creating this intellectual property, and we want them to stay here," Hira said.