Press Releases that Sound Too Good to Be True
Sometimes marketing will publish a press release that sounds too good to be true and in the process set unrealistic expectations and ruin the public's perception of a product which is actually pretty good.
IBM gave me access to the IBM Quantum Experience and I have been playing with it for the past few days. For what it was originally intended, a experimental educational toy for students and researchers, it is quite good. The tool includes a good built-in tutorial that explains the basics of quantum computing, a composer that allows one to configure quantum gates, a simulator, and finally, the ability to run the problem on the actual quantum processor. The tool includes a nice graphic interface that makes creating a configuration a drag-and-drop exercise and a capability to save and display results in an easy to use manner. For those of you interested, I have posted a "First Look" review and you can view it at: http://quantumcomputingreport.com/our-take/ibm-quantum-experience-first-looks/.
There is a lot of hype associated wtih quantum computing these days and it is easy for the general media who do not understand quantum computing technology to blow a development way out of proportion. Many of these folks would not recognize a qubit even if they entangled with one in a dark alley. This has certainly happened in this case and this is not good for IBM given the general concerns for the company that the strategic imperative technologies are not increasing in revenue as fast as the legacy technologies are declining.
- Doug
Biting the hand that feeds IT
