Quantum computers are very strange things, so far unseen outside of the science lab. Optical-based quantum computers work by measuring the intereference patterns present in various combinations of lightwaves. The process involves an interaction between electrons, light waves, and acoustic elements, which culminates in a ‘quantum database’. It all has a lot to do with wave-particle duality and the fact that photons of light can be in two places at once (sort of). No, I don’t fully understand that. I do understand the practical outcome though: Running a program through a quantum computer gives you every possible result of that program, all at once. Which must be a cool thing where something like a search engine is concerned.

A team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, led by Paul Kwiat, set up a quantum computer to combine two methods: Quantum computation and quantum interrogation. They call the process ‘counterfactual computation’—using information that is counter to what must have actually happened.

One of the research students on the team, Onur Hosten, said; “By placing our photon in a quantum superposition of running and not running the search algorithm, we obtained information about the answer even when the photon did not run the search algorithm”. So … by not running the program, they got their answer? Kwiat says; “It is the possibility that the algorithm could run which prevents the algorithm from running.” So, erm, yes.

This new form of quantum computer gave them the answer to a problem before they switched it on. It solved an algorithm without running. That’s just plain weird.

Full details are here, but a little complex. I certainly don’t understand it all.

You have no idea how long I’ve dreamed of being able to write a headline like that. It’s easily on a par with this one.

Hanson Robotics are an American company, specialising in humanising technology—working towards natural-looking humanoid robots, natural conversation artificial intelligence, facial recognition and following, and other such things. They’re probably best known (until now) for their ‘Albert Hubo’ robot with the face of Albert Einstein, as seen on the cover of last month’s edition of Wired Magazine.

Hanson Robobtics’ flagship project of recent years has been the creation of a robotic facsimile of dead science fiction author Phillip K. Dick. Dick was written off as a pulp author during his short lifetime, but posthumously appreciated as one of the genre’s greats, mostly thanks to Hollywood movie adaptations of his short stories. Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck … there’s a lot of them out there.

The ‘Phil’ robot is capable of holding reasonably coherent conversations with people, its facial expressions are very lifelike, and its natural language systems incredibly advanced. Phil supposedly has a tendency to quote his own works when a little thrown by a particular question, but the real Phillip K. Dick was well known as an oddball himself, so this can be forgiven. Phil was exhibited at the Wired Nextfest in 2005 and blew the crowds away.

The best is yet to come though.

Phil is missing. Hanson Robotics have lost their android clone of Phillip K. Dick. The man responsible for Blade Runner. Whose books so often concerned themselves with the question of whether robots have a soul, whether androids deserve rights, whether a robot knows it is a machine, and so on. Let me repeat that one more time: Phillip K. Dick’s android clone has gone missing. Outstanding stuff.

Phil was being transported by air to California for an exhibition in early January this year, when he disappeared. Foul play is suspected and detectives are scouring eBay in case somebody tries to sell Phil on. Company officials fear ransom demands (not that they’re too worried—they are talking about building a second Phil anyway).

I think this is my favourite news story ever. Not only have I learned that somebody, somewhere managed to get enough funding together to spend their days building a robot based on a deceased paranoid delusional science-fiction author, but the disappearance of the robot really brings the ‘clone’ to life. Dick’s stories often concerned themselves with the nature of consciousness and perception of reality, with robots who believed they were human … and now here I am talking about this lump of rubber, plastic and silicon as though it has run away from it’s creators. I’m humanising it.

Another point worth pondering: If you stole an android clone of Phillip K. Dick, what would you do with it? Sit it in your living room and talk to it of an evening? Prop it up on a park bench and film the public’s reactions?

If you want to read up on the Phil project, go do so here.

Erm, yeah … I’m messing with this site. Changing this, altering that. You know the drill. It’ll be messy around here for a while.