Month: August 2021

A recent study published by Penn State examined how much personality comes into play when interacting online. Factors such as being extroverted, introverted, gender, and more, help determine your online browsing behavior.  

According to the study, for extroverted women, Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) tools helped drive certain websites to be more interactive. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), on the other hand, was more prevalent among male extroverts who preferred to directly interact with the computer.

S. Shyam Sundar, James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects Research in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory, said, “When you go to a website – for example, the Google search engine – you’re essentially engaging in HCI, which is different from CMC, which is when you’re communicating with other humans through computer technology. When we talk about HCI here, it’s really about the degree to which the system or the machine allows us to interact with it, and it includes everything from how we swipe and tap on our mobile devices, to how we try to access different information through links on a website. When we talk about CMC, it is about the tools to chat with somebody else, like a customer service agent through an online portal, or when we’re having a video chat via Zoom, for example.”

An imperative aspect of creating positive user experiences is knowing who your web visitors are, along with what engages them. Sundar said, “These are actually quite important business decisions, because they cost a lot of money and have a lot of backend consequences.”

People who are extroverted in real life are also somewhat outgoing when it comes to virtual interactions, according to the paper.

Yan Huang, assistant professor of integrated strategic communication in the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication, University of Houston, and first author of the report, said, “Our findings largely supported the hypothesis that as people’s level of extroversion goes up, they’re more likely to recognize the interactive potential of the site, no matter if it’s communicating with the machine, or using the computer to talk to other people, but gender also makes a difference here. What we saw was that extroversion has slightly different effects for men compared to women, in terms of the types of interactivity that they appreciate more.”

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Findings were recently published in Nature, which outlined how Harvard-led physicists built a programmable quantum simulator (computer) that can operate with 256 qubits (quantum bits). The novel processor is a huge step toward creating massive quantum machines, which could lead to real-world breakthroughs. The fastest supercomputers today would easily be outperformed by a quantum computer. Quantum computers run on qubits, which help them process so powerfully.

Mikhail Lukin, the George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Physics, co-director of the Harvard Quantum Initiative, and senior author of the study, said, “This moves the field into a new domain where no one has ever been to thus far. We are entering a completely new part of the quantum world.”

Sepehr Ebadi, a physics student and the study’s lead author, suggested the combination of the system’s unprecedented size and programmability is what makes it cutting edge.

The race to building a quantum computer has been going on for quite some time. Dubbed the new “space race” by some, Forbes recently published an article called, “27 Milestones in The History of Quantum Computing,” dating back to Albert Einstein in 1905. The term “quantum mechanics” was first used in 1924 by Max Born. Between China, the United States, Google, IBM, and many more, the race has been hot for years.

The more qubits each system has, the more information it can store. With a higher processing power, the computer can handle exponentially more data. Ebadi explained quantum computer systems’ immense size by saying, “The number of quantum states that are possible with only 256 qubits exceeds the number of atoms in the solar system.”

Tout Wang, a research associate in physics at Harvard and an author in the paper said, “Our work is part of a really intense, high-visibility global race to build bigger and better quantum computers. The overall effort has top academic research institutions involved and major private-sector investment from Google, IBM, Amazon, and many others.”

The subsequent steps for the Harvard researchers include advancing laser control, making the system more programmable, along with studying new applications such as deciphering complex real-world problems. 

Ebadi said, “This work enables a vast number of new scientific directions. We are nowhere near the limits of what can be done with these systems.”

Founded in 1994, Creative Programs and Systems provides professional results for all computer needs. We design, create, and code an array of custom software programs and websites; offer top-notch digital marketing services including enhanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and paid advertising; repair and provide support for computers of both residential and professional nature; build custom systems and servers, and offer secure data backups. Need assistance or want to learn more? Call us at 810-224-5252 or e-mail info@cpsmi.com.

Written by the digital marketing staff at Creative Programs & Systems: www.cpsmi.com.