Category Technology/Electronics

Scientists just captured a mysterious quantum “dance” inside superconductors

Illustration of an optical lattice, which looks like an egg crate, with pairs of particles sitting in various pockets of the lattice.
For the first time, researchers have imaged how pairs of electrons behave in a superconductor. Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Simons Foundation

Scientists just spotted a mysterious quantum “dance” that could rewrite superconductivity—and reshape future tech. For the first time, researchers have directly visualized the quantum behavior that drives superconductivity, a state in which paired electrons allow electricity to flow with zero resistance at very low temperatures.

But what they observed came as a surprise.

In a study published April 15 in Physical Review Letters, the team captured images of individual atoms forming pairs inside a specially prepared gas cooled to nearly absolute zero — the unreachable limit to how cold anything can get...

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How everyday devices could train AI faster while keeping personal data on-device

Irene Tenison, Lalana Kagal and Anna Murphy at desk with laptops
Caption:Irene Tenison, Lalana Kagal and Anna Murphy of the Decentralized Information Group (DIG) developed a new method that could bring more accurate and efficient AI models to high-stakes applications like health care and finance.
Credits:Credit: Adam Glanzman

A new method developed by MIT researchers can accelerate a privacy-preserving artificial intelligence training method by about 81%. This advance could enable a wider array of resource-constrained edge devices, like sensors and smartwatches, to deploy more accurate AI models while keeping user data secure.

The MIT researchers boosted the efficiency of a technique known as federated learning, which involves a network of connected devices that work together to train a shared AI model.

In federated learning, the model is broad...

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Low-cost 3D printers could gain medical-grade precision from ultrathin light-control film

Ultra-thin optical film sharpens 3D printing precision
Researchers designed and fabricated a double-sided structure collimation film (DSSCF) with better collimation characteristics thanks to additional trapezoidal microstructures that prevent the large-angle leakage light seen with single-sided structure collimation film (SSSCF). The DSSCF also improves the light intensity uniformity when combined with a diffuser module. Credit: Ding-Zheng Lin, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology

Researchers have developed an ultra-thin optical film that improves the quality of the light used in LCD resin-based 3D printers. The advance helps ensure that tiny details are reproduced with precision, which could make it possible to 3D-print medical-grade or industrial-grade products at a lower cost.

Resin-based 3D printing, or vat photopoly...

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Why faster AI isn’t always better

AI Latency Perception

In the race to make AI models not just reason better but respond faster, latency—the delay before an answer appears—is often treated as a purely technical constraint, something to minimize and move past. But how is this relentless push for speed actually impacting the people using these systems every day?

There is a rich body of work in human–computer interaction linking faster response to better usability. But AI models are fundamentally different from the deterministic systems that previous research was built on. When you wait for a file to download or a page to load, the outcome is fixed and predictable.

AI models are probabilistic—you cannot anticipate the precise response...

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