Table of ContentsTable of ContentsThickness matters, as does size and usabilityIts time to revamp the front displayCamera and Performance are opportunities for SamsungEverything else that Samsung should emulateThe Find N5 has the peak folding form factorFor the past five years, Ive used a folding phone as one of my primary devices, and the journey to finding the perfect size and style has taken many twists and turns.The original Galaxy Fold introduced a new concept to the mainstream, but then, Samsung settled into a pattern of making small but important refinements each year. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 was the most refined version yet, but it started to struggle against competition that released thinner and lighter foldables.Recommended VideosThe Pixel 9 Pro Fold showed that Samsung could have pushed the envelope which they did months later in the somewhat-thinner Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition and then the Magic V3 showed that the US doesnt get the best phones.RelatedNow its the turn of the Oppo Find N5. This phone was widely expected to be the OnePlus Open 2 before Oppo and OnePlus broke our hearts. Its the worlds thinnest foldable for now, at least but it addresses several other criticisms of the book-style experience. After a week, Im convinced its a blueprint for Samsung to copy with the Galaxy Z Fold 7. Heres why.Nirave Gondhia / Digital TrendsSince the Galaxy Z Fold 2, Samsung has pushed for a narrower and taller aspect ratio than its rivals. The company has bet that people prefer the dimensions of a taller book versus a passport, but the Find N5 has the ideal form factor, and Samsung should shamelessly adopt the same.The Find N5 is both taller and wider than the Galaxy Z Fold 6, but the form factor works as its significantly thinner. At 8.9mm thick when folded, its almost a third thinner than the Galaxy Z Fold 6. Although its only ten grams lighter, it feels more than this, thanks to the thin profile.Samsung is aware of the need to improve the thickness of its devices, as it launched the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition a few months after the Z Fold 6. Unfortunately, it is limited to South Korea and China, but even if it were widely available, Im not sure its the solution.I havent used the special edition, but the specs point toward a thinner foldable that also fixes some key problems. Its 4.9mm thick when unfolded, although this rises to 10.6mm when folded. The Cover Display is 0.2-inches larger, while the main display is increased by 0.4mm. These are better specs, but they arent world-beating, so the Galaxy Z Fold 7 will need to push this boundary further.Nirave Gondhia / Digital TrendsAs a result of the bigger and thinner design, Oppo has managed to make the front display larger. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 has a 6.3-inch Cover Display with 2600 nits peak brightness, while the Find N5 has a larger 6.62-inch display with 2450 nits peak brightness. The latter is more akin to a regular smartphone, which makes the Find N5 so comfortable to use with one hand or two.Unfold it, and the Oppo Find N5 has a near-perfect form factor. The 8.12-inch display is the largest on a book-style foldable unless you count the tri-fold Huawei Mate XT and its bigger and thinner than the latest iPad Air. I returned to using the 7.6-inch main display on the Galaxy Z Fold 6, and I vastly prefer the bigger screen on the Find N5.I have found that I use the front display far more as its just like a regular phone. Its familiar and ergonomically friendly, and again, the ultra-thin body means it feels just like a regular phone when folded. On numerous occasions, Ive accidentally mistaken it for my iPhone, especially when its in my pocket.Nirave Gondhia / Digital TrendsThe Find N5 has mostly flagship specs throughout the experience, but there are a couple of areas where Samsung could revamp its lineup and be different.The ultra-thin profile on the Find N5 required a custom-designed USB-C port, as well as custom internals to handle heat dissipation. The latter is provided by the 7-core Snapdragon 8 Elite, and from my testing, its clear that its significantly throttled.Nirave Gondhia / Digital TrendsIt features one fewer core than the main Snapdragon 8 Elite that powers most of the best Android phones, but this new version is further throttled as well. Yes, the Find N5 has excellent heat dissipation, but there is a noticeable difference in the performance.This presents an opportunity for Samsung. The overclocked custom Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy is fantastic, but if Samsung is to go for a much thinner foldable, it might find that it needs a tweaked version. Improving the GPU performance on a For Galaxy version of the 7-core processor could give the Galaxy Z Fold 7 a definitive boost in performance.Nirave Gondhia / Digital TrendsTheres also an opportunity in the camera. The Find N5 features a 50MP main camera, an 8MP ultrawide camera, and a 50MP periscope telephoto lens that offers the 3x zoom and 6x hybrid zoom features that work so well on the OnePlus 13. Its not an identical camera, but it is on par with many of the best phones.In comparison, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 has similar wide and ultrawide cameras but needs an improved telephoto lens. The current 10MP telephoto offers 3x optical zoom but lacks the polish and quality that Samsungs smartphones do. This camera setup hasnt evolved in years, but it needs to improve for the Galaxy Z Fold 7 to have a fighting chance, especially as the Pixel 9 Pro Fold already offers a superior camera stack.Nirave Gondhia / Digital TrendsTheres more that the Galaxy Z Fold 7 needs to compete with. The Find N5 has the biggest battery on any foldable at 5,600 mAh, almost 30% larger than the Galaxy Z Fold 6. Similarly, it charges at 80W compared to 45W on Samsungs fold, and it can support 50W wireless charging compared to 15W.You may be thinking that some of this doesnt matter as the Galaxy Z Fold has something no one else does: the S Pen. However, the Find N5 supports the Oppo Pen stylus, and unlike Samsung, it supports the stylus on both displays.Theres also the software; OnePlus introduced the excellent Open Canvas on the OnePlus Open, and its now included on the Find N5. Essentially, it allows you to run up to three windows at once by virtually extending your display. It doesnt have all the bells and whistles that Samsungs multitasking does, but its the best overall use of multitasking on a big screen yet.Nirave Gondhia / Digital TrendsIve been a big fan of Samsungs foldable lineup since it first launched, but over the past two years, they have become heavier and less appealing than the competition. Now, the Oppo Find N5 has proven that Samsung doesnt have the best folding phone anymore, as Oppo has perfected the folding form factor.Its hard to see how the Find N5 can improve from here, but its clear that the seventh generation of Galaxy Fold needs to be a radical departure from the status quo. Well, I think Samsung needs to take these steps, but the company doesnt need to.The Oppo Find N5 isnt launching outside a few key markets and theres no launch in the EU or the US while the next thinnest, the Honor Magic V3, is more widely available globally but is not available in the US. This leaves the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, which is already a significant step forward from the Galaxy Z Fold 6 form factor. For the most part, Samsung is safe from the competition for now.Editors Recommendations

Following Google and Microsofts quantum computing announcements, the tech giant says its new chip will lead to more reliable quantum computers.

The request highlights the presidents challenging task of trying to boost U.S. businesses and limit Chinas advances in artificial intelligence.

Magnificent desolation The Moons next robotic visitor is lining up for landing this weekend The first lunar lander built by Firefly Aerospace is on quite a trip, and has the selfies to prove it. Stephen Clark Feb 27, 2025 7:00 am | 3 A crescent Earth hangs over the Moon's horizon in this view from Firefly's Blue Ghost lander in lunar orbit. Credit: Firefly Aerospace A crescent Earth hangs over the Moon's horizon in this view from Firefly's Blue Ghost lander in lunar orbit. Credit: Firefly Aerospace Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreCEDAR PARK, TexasEarly Sunday morning, while most of America is sleeping, a couple dozen engineers in Central Texas will have their eyes glued to monitors watching data stream in from a quarter-million miles away.These ground controllers at Firefly Aerospace hope that their robotic spacecraft, named Blue Ghost, will become the second commercial mission to complete a soft landing on the Moon, following the landing of a spacecraft by Intuitive Machines last year. This is the first lunar mission for Firefly Aerospace, a company established in 2014 to develop a small satellite launcher.Since then, Firefly has undergone changes in ownership, a bankruptcy, and a renaming. Recognizing that the company had to diversify to survive, Firefly executives began pursuing other business opportunitiesspacecraft manufacturing, lunar missions, and a medium-class rocketto go alongside its small Alpha launch vehicle.From a business perspective, Firefly's foray into lunar transportation has been worth the effort. NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program has awarded the company three contracts to deliver experiments to the Moon's surface. Under the first deal, NASA is paying Firefly about $101 million to transport 10 payloads to the Moon on the company's first Blue Ghost lander.Now, Firefly is about to find out if its lunar program is a technical success. Landing on the Moon is risky. In the last decade, the success rate for lunar landing attempts is a little above 50 percent6-for-11and two of the successful landers either tipped over or landed upside-down.Jason Kim, Firefly's CEO, is confident that Blue Ghost will work. In an interview with Ars, Kim cited the lander's development team, design, and "robust" testing on the ground before Blue Ghost went to the launch pad as reasons for his optimism."At the end of the day, it's those three things," Kim said. "It's the people. Are you trained up? Are they committed? Are they responsible and own it? Two, it's the design with margin, really good designs with margin, then taking into account all the lessons learned (from other lunar missions)."And then, three, the qualification program, testing it and testing it and testing it," Kim said. "That's what gives everyone confidence that we're going to stick this landing."Moon in 4KAssembled in Cedar Park, a suburb north of Austin, Texas, the Blue Ghost spacecraft is about the size of an SUV. Blue Ghost launched January 15 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket alongside another privately developed lunar lander from the Japanese company ispace. The two landers are taking separate paths to the Moon, with Firefly due to land first, followed by ispace's Resilience lander at a separate location in the next few months.You can find Blue Ghost's landing site on the upper right part of the full Moon in a dark region the size of Missouri known as Mare Crisium. This 340-mile-wide (550-kilometer) impact basin was formed when an asteroid struck the Moon nearly 4 billion years ago. Firefly will target landing near an ancient volcanic dome named Mons Latreille, which has sat dormant for billions of years after volcanic activity ceased on the Moon.It will take 46 days for Blue Ghost to transit from the launch pad in Florida to Mare Crisium. The spacecraft spent nearly a month circling the Earth, gradually boosting its orbit higher until it reached the vicinity of the Moon on February 13, when it fired its engines to slip into lunar orbit. Since then, Blue Ghost has adjusted its trajectory several times before reaching a near-circular orbit about 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the Moon on Monday.Firefly released a time-lapse video Monday from one of Blue Ghost's 12 cameras showing the spacecraft's top deck, with the Moon's cratered terrain unrolling beneath it. In the distance, a crescent Earth disappears behind the Moon's curved horizon, then reemerges in an Earthrise reminiscent of iconic imagery captured by astronauts during the Apollo program.This week, Firefly is preparing for a final series of maneuvers this weekend to prepare for landing early Sunday. First, Blue Ghost will fire its engines for 19 seconds to drop its orbit closer to the Moon. About 11 minutes prior to touchdown, the spacecraft will ignite its engines again to decelerate from about 3,800 mph of lateral velocity to less than 100 mph (1.7 km/second to 40 m/second).Blue Ghost will then pitch over to point its thrusters down toward the lunar surface and pulse a set of eight smaller reaction control system thrusters to slow its vertical descent. This phase of the landing sequence will begin with the spacecraft about 1,600 feet (500 meters) above the surface."Our RCS thrusters will continue to pulse as needed to control that descent to make sure that we are landing in a good orientation," said Farah Zuberi, Firefly's director of spacecraft mission management. "That reduces our descent rate to about 1 meter per second, and then our vision navigation system further tracks crater slopes (and) rocks to automatically select a hazard-free site within the landing zone that was identified by NASA."Then we will touch down onto the lunar surface," Zuberi said. "Well use our shock absorbing legs to stabilize the lander as it touches down, and then there are contact sensors on the footpads to signal engine shutdown, and thats when we will know that we have nominally landed."The lander's four shock-absorbing legs have some give, sort of like the crush zone of a car, according to Will Coogan, Firefly's chief engineer for the Blue Ghost lander. The legs have an aluminum honeycomb material inside, and they connect to bowl-shaped footpads with a ball-socket joint to give the spacecraft some flexibility in case it comes down on a slope or a rock. Ideally, the lander's navigation instruments will guide Blue Ghost to a flat landing site without any major obstacles."These footpads do bend," Coogan told Ars during a visit to see the Blue Ghost lander in its Texas factory. "They will bend a little bit around a rock, but theyll also rotate to find the most stable position." Firefly's Blue Ghost lander inside the company's spacecraft manufacturing facility in Cedar Park, Texas. Two of the spacecraft's Spectra reaction control system thrusters and its central main engine are visible here, along with two of its four landing legs and curved footpads. Credit: Stephen Clark/Ars Technica Early results from Blue GhostAfter landing, Firefly's ground controllers hope to switch from a low-bandwidth communications link to a higher data rate X-band system. If all goes according to plan, Blue Ghost could be streaming live video from the surface of the Moon back to Earth in as little as 30 minutes after touchdown.Blue Ghost will operate for about 14 days (one entire lunar day) after landing. The instruments aboard Firefly's lander include a subsurface drill, an X-ray imager, and an experimental electrodynamic dust shield to test methods of repelling troublesome lunar dust from accumulating on sensitive spacecraft components. The spacecraft will drain its batteries after the Sun sets at Mare Crisium for the two-week-long lunar night.A few of the NASA-funded experiments on Blue Ghost have already produced preliminary results. For example, an experimental receiver aboard the Blue Ghost lander acquired and tracked navigation signals from GPS satellites for the first time in lunar orbit, where these signals are 361 times weaker than on Earth. This is twice the distance of the previous record for the farthest GPS signal acquisition.Future Moon missions, including human expeditions, will require precise positioning data to help spacecraft and astronauts navigate to pinpoint landings and rove across the lunar surface. NASA's network of ground stations can provide navigation services for Moon missions, but their capacity is limited and oversubscribed by other spacecraft in deep space. Relying on existing satellite navigation signals would offload some of the demand for these ground stations and perhaps reduce the need for a dedicated fleet of navigation satellites in lunar orbit.So far, the navigation experiment on Firefly's Blue Ghost shows this might be possible. In a few days, the receiver will try again to acquire GPS and Galileo navigation signals from the lunar surface, another first.Engineers also gathered data on the performance of a radiation-tolerant flight computer as the spacecraft transited through the Van Allen radiation belts in the weeks following launch. Firefly's Blue Ghost lander will land in Mare Crisium, an impact basin on the near side of the Moon. Credit: NASA/Lunar and Planetary Institute Regional Planetary Image Facility Fireflys place in CLPSThere's a reason Moon landings aren't easy. Landers like Firefly's Blue Ghost operate autonomously, ingesting cues from lasers or cameras to guide themselves toward a smooth landing. The Moon lacks an atmosphere to help spacecraft slow down during descent. More than 50 years elapsed between the last US landing on the Moon and the Intuitive Machines mission a year ago. One could argue lunar landing expertise atrophied in the United States.Countless design decisions go into developing and building a spacecraft. Early on, Firefly's engineers had to determine what materials, engines, and electronics to use on Blue Ghost.Most fundamentally, engineers needed to decide on the lander's shape. This matters. Firefly officials say their lander's design makes it less vulnerable to tipping over after a wonky landing. The Odysseus lander built by Intuitive Machines snapped one of its legs and fell over on its side after arriving on the Moon last year. The altimeter on Odysseus failed, causing it to come down with too much horizontal velocity.The spacecraft continued operating and returned some scientific data from the Moon, so it qualified as at least a partial success. But the tumble prevented the spacecraft from recharging its batteries, and the Odysseus shut down a few days after landing. A second lander from Intuitive Machines, named Athena, is scheduled to launch to the Moon as soon as Wednesday and reach the surface on March 6, just four days after Firefly gets there.The landers designed by Intuitive Machines are tall and skinny. Firefly's Blue Ghost is "short and squatty" in shape, which should make it harder to tip over, said Kim, who took over as Firefly's chief executive last year.Coogan said Blue Ghost's designers intentionally chose a shape for the spacecraft that puts the center of mass as low to the ground as possible. Intuitive Machines stacked their two fuel and oxidizer tanks on top of each other, resulting in a taller vehicle. The four propellant tanks on Blue Ghost are arranged in a diagonal configuration, with two containing hydrazine fuel and two holding an oxidizer called nitrogen tetroxide.This trade-off means Firefly's lander is heavier, with four tanks instead of two. By going with a stockier lander design, Firefly needed to install four tanks because the spacecraft's fuel and oxidizer have different densities. If Firefly went with just two tanks side-by-side, the spacecraft's center of mass would change continually as it burns propellant during the final descent to the Moon, creating an unnecessary problem for the lander's guidance, navigation, and control system to overcome."You want to avoid that," Coogan said. "What you can do is you can either get four tanks and have fuel and oxidizer at diagonal angles, and then you're always centered, or you can stay with two tanks, and you can stack them."Firefly's approach requires fewer landing legs than Intuitive Machinesfour instead of two. And engineers designed Blue Ghost's landing legs to be more forgiving in uneven terrain or during an off-balance landing. "The lower your center of mass, is really the best," Coogan said. "There are only so many outcomes of this engineering trade." Jaxon Liebeck, a Blue Ghost flight director, describes the finer points of Firefly's lunar lander to the author before the spacecraft shipped to Cape Canaveral for launch. Credit: Firefly Aerospace NASA set up the CLPS program in 2018 to provide an avenue for companies to bid on opportunities to transport payloads to the Moon. While there are tangible scientific and engineering payoffs from the experiments aboard the CLPS landers, the initial salvo of commercial lunar missions has more sweeping goals. In this phase of the CLPS program, NASA wants contractors to show that they can reliably land on the Moon to foster a commercial lunar economy, facilitating a range of business pursuits to go along with the government's Artemis lunar program.NASA has made 13 industrial teams eligible to compete for CLPS missions. The space agency has placed firm orders with five of these providersAstrobotic, Blue Origin, Draper Laboratory, Firefly Aerospace, and Intuitive Machinesfor 11 lunar missions. Intuitive Machines and Firefly have won the most CLPS task orders, with four and three missions, respectively.Kim said he has talked with the other CLPS companies since becoming Firefly's CEO. They each are pursuing different technical solutions, but they face the same daunting challenges in getting to the Moon. While they compete for NASA's money, the CLPS competitorsor what Kim calls "competimates"have a mutual interest in seeing one another succeed. A series of failures might cause NASA to restructure or cancel the CLPS program and wouldn't do anything to cultivate the lucrative business environment sought by all the CLPS companies."I've spoken to NASA Headquarters, and they give the same advice: 'Hey, go talk to the different CEOs of those different companies and learn from them and share with them as well,'" Kim said. "I've spoken to each of the CEOs. I've also done my own homework and research."Thomas Zurbuchen, the former head of NASA's science mission directorate, was instrumental in getting the CLPS program up and running. Early in the program, Zurbuchen guessed the first group of CLPS lander missions might have a 5050 chance of success. Borrowing from a sports metaphor, NASA officials likened CLPS to taking "shots on goal" with a regular cadence of missions, allowing contractors to try new ways of doing business, overcome potential failures, and try again in an iterative development cycle.With the small sample size of two missions in the books, the CLPS program is batting .500, just as Zurbuchen predicted. The outcome of this weekend's landing attempt will determine whether CLPS moves ahead or behind the Zurbuchen curve.Stephen ClarkSpace ReporterStephen ClarkSpace Reporter Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the worlds space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet. 3 Comments

Quantum computing is expected to solve complex problems, but the technology has a dark underbelly, which is its ability to render classical encryption obsolete. That means every file at rest and in motion is at risk without limitation.[T]he advent of quantum computing is a game-changer -- a double-edged sword that demands both urgency and precision in response, says Timothy Bates, AI, cybersecurity, blockchain and XR professor of practice at University of Michigan and former Lenovo CTO, in an email interview. Quantum computing has the potential to render our current encryption methods, like RSA and ECC, obsolete almost overnight. It's not a question of if but when. That when could be sooner than we think given the accelerating pace of quantum advancements. The implications for secure communications, financial systems and even national security are staggering.As Always, Bad Actors Have an EdgeThe potential winners of the cryptography threat are countries unbound by strict ethical or regulatory frameworks. Bates says they will leverage quantum to breach security protocols without hesitation. Quantum-as-a-service (QaaS) platforms lower the bar for malicious actors, and the asymmetry between regulatory-constrained organizations and rogue entities gives the latter a significant edge.Related:Quantum-safe encryption must be prioritized. The industry needs to fast-track the development of post-quantum cryptographic standards and embed them into critical systems now, not later. Collaboration between quantum computing pioneers, cybersecurity leaders and regulators will be crucial to staying ahead, says Bates. Governments must adopt policies that encourage responsible quantum development while creating international standards to deter misuse.He also believes that CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs must band together to share intelligence, pool resources, and test emerging quantum technologies in controlled environments because no one can tackle the problem alone.Timothy Bates, University of MichiganTimothy Bates, University of MichiganStart piloting quantum-resistant technologies today. Its better to face small, controlled failures now than catastrophic breaches later. Push for investments in quantum technologies and talent pipelines. These will be the linchpins of your organizations survival in a post-quantum world, says Bates.While competition drives innovation, collaboration ensures resilience. Engage with peers, regulators, and even competitors to develop collective safeguards. Quantum computing isnt a looming threat, its an imminent reality. Our response must be strategic, collaborative and immediate. The stakes couldnt be higher, and the clock is ticking. Lets not get caught on the wrong side of history.Related:CISOs Are Rightly ConcernedQuantum computing has sent shivers down the spines of CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs. While there's always innovation, such as Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC), the question is will that innovation happen soon enough?What is different is that quantum computing, rather than being an evolution, is shaping to be a revolution, says Jon France, CISO at ISC2, a non-profit member organization for cybersecurity professionals, in an email interview. One of the concerns is the compromise of classical asymmetric encryption. However, theres also quantum resilient encryption, algorithms, and attendant cryptography suites that are designed to be resilient to the emerging quantum compute -- it's shaping up to be a race to become resilient [and] safe.Examples of quantum resilient suites currently include Crystals-Dilithium, Crstals Kyber, Sphincs+ and Falcon.Jon France, ISC2Jon France, ISC2[T]he solution to the problem is known: Change from quantum vulnerable suites to quantum safe suites. [It] is conceptually easy but practically hard to achieve, says France. The concern is that this is a huge change task. Nearly everything digital relies on asymmetric encryption, and changing those billions of entities over to new suites will take time. For some, this will not be possible due to compute constraints, reachability, etc., so we will also have a legacy problem.Related:Savvy IT Departments Also Recognize the Threat[O]ur lives are on the internet -- banking, utilities, everything. If quantum computers existed today, there would be a global shutdown of services, says Troy Nelson, chief technology officer at cybersecurity solutions provider Lastwall, in an email interview. My biggest concerns are that the education right now doesn't exist, and that people aren't aware, or the people in the right places aren't aware, or aware enough to start reacting. [W]e see state actors that are intercepting core internet routers to divert traffic, and they've got warehouses full of all of our internet data that at some point in time, whether it's three or five or 10 years from now, when they do have access to a quantum computer, they will be able to decrypt everything that they're currently capturing.Companies are potentially exacerbating the problem by failing to comprehend the threat and postponing investment.None of the quantum computers that are being offered as a service today can really break our modern-day encryption, but when they do become full million qubit quantum computers that can break modern encryption, we need to be using quantum resistant algorithms, says Nelson. [I]f you don't have budget to start moving to new algorithms, start making a cryptographic inventory [because] a lot of organizations and agencies probably aren't aware of what cryptographic algorithms they're using, where theyre using them or what theyre being used for. If you have an executive summary of your cryptography, and you can see your weak points, and you can plan for the upgrade and start having an idea of how to fit that into your budgeting cycle.Sebastian Straub, principal solution architect at enterprise-grade data protection solution provider N2WS, says three things need to happen: the development of post-quantum cryptography before quantum computers can be weaponized; the passage of regulation designed to prevent a quantum arms race through international agreements; and education among IT professionals.With QaaS platforms already available today, state-sponsored hackers can experiment with quantum computing without worrying about oversight. Examples include IBM Quantum, Amazon Braket,Microsoft Azure Quantum, and Xanadu, says Straub in an email interview. Defensive measures like PQC and zero-trust architectures can help level the playing field before we lose our minds -- if we start implementing them now.Peter O'Donoghue, chief technology officer at technology solutions provider Tyto Athene, says while quantum computers capable of breaking RSA-2048 are probably decades away, proactive measures are nevertheless essential.The timeline for innovation is less about technology readiness and more about how swiftly organizations implement quantum-resistant solutions to stay ahead of emerging threats, says ODonoghue. Organizations should implement PQC as an element of a modern security posture. Migrating to post-quantum encryption requires a multi-year, multi-pronged approach toward complying with PQC mandates and safeguarding digital assets against future quantum threats. Although this isnt an easy transition, its a necessary one. Organizations must start implementing these measures to remain ahead of emerging quantum threats, or they risk long-term security challenges.He believes enterprises should establish a centralized center of excellence (CoE) for crypto agility because it would provide a unified encryption policy plane across all infrastructure elements, managing key generation, storage, rotation and deployment. By centralizing these functions, risk management professionals gain the necessary oversight and control to ensure that appropriate risk-based decisions are made. Theyre also in a better position to adapt to evolving cryptographic challenges while maintaining strong security and compliance.The Time To Start is NowIn addition to generating a technical inventory of the cryptography use, Konstantinos Karagiannis, head of quantum computing services at business consulting firm Proviti, warns that organizations should also examine any third-party vendors used and their PQC plans.On August 13, 2024, NIST published its first set of standards for post-quantum cryptography. The group will standardize further ciphers in the future, too, says Karagiannis in an email interview. NIST has given dates of 2030 for deprecating and 2035 for disallowing vulnerable encryption, so it should be feasible for most companies to meet these deadlines.While the deadlines should protect most data types, some secrets with a long shelf life may still leak. Bad actors, especially nation states, have already been harvesting trade secrets, healthcare information and government classified information that will remain of interest even decades after being harvested.My biggest concern is that companies will think they have a long time because quantum computers might be a decade away from cracking encryption. Public opinion swings quickly, as we saw when quantum stocks went down in value after Nvidias CEO commented on how long it would be before quantum computers offered value, says Karagiannis. As mentioned, harvest-now, decrypt-later attacks mean your data can be awaiting decryption by an attacker even as you read these words. Everyone needs to start the migration process this year.Only federal agencies are currently required to begin PQC migration, he says. Regulators in the private sector need to quickly follow the example set by the White House NSM-10 memorandum and require companies to go through the steps of building a cryptographic inventory, creating a migration plan by 2030, and then executing the plan.We also need system manufacturers, software providers, and cloud service companies to begin offering PQC solutions. Ideally, anything you buy a year or two from now will have PQC aboard, making migrating older systems a one-time process we all need to get through. New organizations formed towards the decade's end should have turn-key PQC available, says Karagiannis. Start the journey to PQC today.

An artists impression of the solar systemShutterstock/Vadim SadovskiAll of our solar systems planets are lining up in the night sky at once this week. This extraordinary celestial event will see the sky scattered with seven visible planets in what is known as a great planetary alignment, or a planetary parade.The eight planets in our solar system orbit the sun in roughly the same plane because they all originally formed from the same disc of debris around the sun. The line the sun traces across the daytime sky called the ecliptic aligns with this plane, so when the planets appear in the sky, they all appear roughly along the ecliptic. It isnt a perfect line of planets, because their orbits are tilted slightly, but it is fairly close. AdvertisementNever is this more apparent than during a planetary alignment. Typically, only a few planets share the night sky, butan unusual alignment of all seven planets will be visible for a few evenings around 28 February, depending on your location.The best time to look is right after sunset, with a chance to see all of the planets stretching in an arc across the sky, though all of them except Mars, Jupiter and Uranus will be close to the horizon. Those three will continue to hang around for most of the night, while by the time the sky is completely dark, Mercury andSaturnwill have sunk below the horizon, with Neptune and Venus following shortly after.The main thing preventing such alignments from being visible all of the time aside from weather is the difference in orbital periods among the planets. Mercury, which is closest to the sun, takes about 88 Earth days to complete an orbit, while Neptune, which is most the distant planet, takes nearly 165 Earth years.Voyage across the galaxy and beyond with our space newsletter every month.Sign up to newsletterA great alignment is possible only when the planets are all relatively far from the sun, so they are visible at night, and all in approximately the same half of the sky, so they can be seen at the same time. It is a remarkable orbital coincidence sometimes there are multiple great alignments in a year, and sometimes several years pass without a single one. A similar event isnt due to occur until 2040.Its great to see the interest the planetary parade is generating, says David Armstrong at the University of Warwick, UK. Engagement in astronomy, looking up at the sky, and appreciating the wonder of our solar system are all fantastic, and I encourage anyone interested to take the time to step outside and see the planets with their own eyes if they get the chance over the next few days, and a clear sky.Additional reporting by Alex WilkinsTopics:planets

Elaine KnoxScience fiction, from The Jetsons to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is replete with humanoid robots. But for a long time in the real world, such robots have been a novelty at best and a punchline at worst. Somehow, though, in the last few years, things have shifted. More than a handful of companies are developing humanoid robots, and these technological simulacra have begun popping up in automobile factories and shipping outfits. Some firms are even promising household robots. Still, the most important question has yet to be satisfyingly answered: what is the point? Why make a robot shaped like

Amazon Web Services today announced Ocelot, its first-generation quantum computing chip. While the chip has only rudimentary computing capability, the company says it is a proof-of-principle demonstrationa step on the path to creating a larger machine that can deliver on the industrys promised killer applications, such as fast and accurate simulations of new battery materials. This is a first prototype that demonstrates that this architecture is scalable and hardware-efficient, says Oskar Painter, the head of quantum hardware at AWS, Amazons cloud computing unit. In particular, the company says its approach makes it simpler to perform error correction, a key technical challenge in the development of quantum computing. Ocelot consists of nine quantum bits, or qubits, on a chip about a centimeter square, which, like some forms of quantum hardware, must be cryogenically cooled to near absolute zero in order to operate. Five of the nine qubits are a type of hardware that the field calls a cat qubit, named for Schrdingers cat, the famous 20th-century thought experiment in which an unseen cat in a box may be considered both dead and alive. Such a superposition of states is a key concept in quantum computing. The cat qubits AWS has made are tiny hollow structures of tantalum that contain microwave radiation, attached to a silicon chip.The remaining four qubits are transmonseach an electric circuit made of superconducting material. In this architecture, AWS uses cat qubits to store the information, while the transmon qubits monitor the information in the cat qubits. This distinguishes its technology from Googles and IBMs quantum computers, whose computational parts are all transmons. Notably, AWS researchers used Ocelot to implement a more efficient form of quantum error correction. Like any computer, quantum computers make mistakes. Without correction, these errors add up, with the result that current machines cannot accurately execute the long algorithms required for useful applications. The only way youre going to get a useful quantum computer is to implement quantum error correction, says Painter. Unfortunately, the algorithms required for quantum error correction usually have heavy hardware requirements. Last year, Google encoded a single error-corrected bit of quantum information using 105 qubits. Amazons design strategy requires only a 10th as many qubits per bit of information, says Painter. In work published in Nature on Wednesday, the team encoded a single error-corrected bit of information in Ocelots nine qubits. Theoretically, this hardware design should be easier to scale up to a larger machine than a design made only og transmons, says Painter. This design combining cat qubits and transmons makes error correction simpler, reducing the number of qubits needed, says Shruti Puri, a physicist at Yale University who was not involved in the work. (Puri works part-time for another company that develops quantum computers but spoke to MIT Technology Review in her capacity as an academic.) Basically, you can decompose all quantum errors into two kindsbit flips and phase flips, says Puri. Quantum computers represent information as 1s, 0s, and probabilities, or superpositions, of both. A bit flip, which also occurs in conventional computing, takes place when the computer mistakenly encodes a 1 that should be a 0, or vice versa. In the case of quantum computing, the bit flip occurs when the computer encodes the probability of a 0 as the probability of a 1, or vice versa. A phase flip is a type of error unique to quantum computing, having to do with the wavelike properties of the qubit. The cat-transmon design allowed Amazon to engineer the quantum computer so that any errors were predominantly phase-flip errors. This meant the company could use a much simpler error correction algorithm than Googlesone that did not require as many qubits. Your savings in hardware is coming from the fact that you need to mostly correct for one type of error, says Puri. The other error is happening very rarely. The hardware savings also stem from AWSs careful implementation of an operation known as a C-NOT gate, which is performed during error correction. Amazons researchers showed that the C-NOT operation did not disproportionately introduce bit-flip errors. This meant that after each round of error correction, the quantum computer still predominantly made phase-flip errors, so the simple, hardware-efficient error correction code could continue to be used. AWS began working on designs for Ocelot as early as 2021, says Painter. Its development was a full-stack problem. To create high-performing qubits that could ultimately execute error correction, the researchers had to figure out a new way to grow tantalum, which is what their cat qubits are made of, on a silicon chip with as few atomic-scale defects as possible. Its a significant advance that AWS can now fabricate and control multiple cat qubits in a single device, says Puri. Any work that goes toward scaling up new kinds of qubits, I think, is interesting, she says. Still, there are years of development to go. Other experts have predicted that quantum computers will require thousands, if not millions, of qubits to perform a useful task. Amazons work is a first step, says Puri. She adds that the researchers will need to further reduce the fraction of errors due to bit flips as they scale up the number of qubits. Still, this announcement marks Amazons way forward. This is an architecture we believe in, says Painter. Previously, the companys main strategy was to pursue conventional transmon qubits like Googles and IBMs, and they treated this cat qubit project as skunkworks, he says. Now, theyve decided to prioritize cat qubits. We really became convinced that this needed to be our mainline engineering effort, and well still do some exploratory things, but this is the direction were going. (The startup Alice & Bob, based in France, is also building a quantum computer made of cat qubits.) As is, Ocelot basically is a demonstration of quantum memory, says Painter. The next step is to add more qubits to the chip, encode more information, and perform actual computations. But they have many challenges ahead, from how to attach all the wires to how to link multiple chips together. Scaling is not trivial, he says.

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Reviews weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Flames erupted last Tuesday amid the burned wreckage of the battery storage facility at Moss Landing Power Plant. It happened after a major fire there burned for days and then went quiet for weeks. The reignition is yet another reminder of how difficult fires in lithium-ion batteries can be to deal with. They burn hotter than other firesand even when it looks as if the danger has passed, they can reignite. As these batteries become more prevalent, first responders are learning a whole new playbook for what to do when they catch fire, as a new story from our latest print magazine points out. Lets talk about what makes battery fires a new challenge, and what it means for the devices, vehicles, and grid storage facilities that rely on them. Fires in batteries are pretty nasty, says Nadim Maluf, CEO and cofounder of Qnovo, a company that develops battery management systems and analytics. While first responders might be able to quickly douse a fire in a gas-powered vehicle with a hose, fighting an EV fire can require much more water. Often, its better to just let battery fires burn out on their own, as Maya Kapoor outlines in her story for MIT Technology Review. And as one expert pointed out in that story, until a battery is dismantled and recycled, its always going to be a hazard. One very clear example of that is last weeks reignition at Moss Landing, the worlds biggest battery storage project. In mid-January, a battery fire destroyed a significant part of a 300-megawatt grid storage array. The site has been quiet for weeks, but residents in the area got an alert last Tuesday night urging them to stay indoors and close windows. Vistra, the owner of Moss Landing Power Plant, didnt respond to written questions for this story but said in a public statement that flames were spotted at the facility on Tuesday and the fire had burned itself out by Wednesday morning. Even after a battery burns, some of the cells can still hold charge, Maluf says, and in a large storage installation on the grid, there can be a whole lot of stored energy that can spark new blazes or pose a danger to cleanup crews long after the initial fire. Vistra is currently in the process of de-linking batteries at Moss Landing, according to a website the company set up to share information about the fire and aftermath. The process involves unhooking the electrical connections between batteries, which reduces the risk of future problems. De-linking work began on February 22 and should take a couple of weeks to complete. Even as crews work to limit future danger from the site, we still dont know why a fire started at Moss Landing in the first place. Vistras site says an investigation is underway and that its working with local officials to learn more. Battery fires can start when cells get waterlogged or punctured, but they can also spark during normal use, if a small manufacturing defect goes unnoticed and develops into a problem. Remember when Samsung Galaxy Note phones were banned from planes because they kept bursting into flames? That was the result of a manufacturing defect that could lead to short-circuiting in some scenarios. (A short-circuit basically happens when the two separate electrodes of a battery come into contact, allowing an uncontrolled flow of electricity that can release heat and start fires.) And then theres the infamous Chevy Boltthose vehicles were all recalled because of fire risk. The issues were also traced back to a manufacturing issue that caused cells to short-circuit. One piece of battery safety is designing EV packs and large stationary storage arrays so that fires can be slowed down and isolated when they do occur. There have been major improvements in fire suppression measures in recent years, and first responders are starting to better understand how to deal with battery fires that get out of hand. Ultimately, though, preventing fires before they occur is the goal. Its a hard job. Identifying manufacturing defects can be like searching for a needle in a haystack, Maluf says. Battery chemistry and cell design are complicated, and the tiniest problem can lead to a major issue down the road. But fire prevention is important to gain public trust, and investing in safety improvements is worth it, because we need these devices more than ever. Batteries are going to be crucial in efforts to clean up our power grid and the transportation sector. I dont believe the answer is stopping these projects, Maluf says. That train has left the station. Now read the rest of The Spark Related reading For more on the Moss Landing Power Plant fire, catch up with my newsletter from a couple of weeks ago. Batteries are a master key technology, meaning they can unlock other tech that helps cut emissions, according to a 2024 report from the International Energy Agency. Read more about the current state of batteries in this story from last year. New York City is interested in battery swapping as a solution for e-bike fires, as I covered last year. Keeping up with climate BP Is dropping its target of increasing renewables by 20-fold by 2030. The company is refocusing on fossil fuels after concerns about earnings. Booooo. (Reuters) This refinery planned to be a hub for alternative jet fuels in the US. Now the project is on shaky ground after the Trump administration has begun trying to claw back funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. (Wired) Alternative jet fuels are one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025. As I covered, the fuels will be a challenge to scale, and thats even more true if federal funding falls through. (MIT Technology Review)Chinese EVs are growing in popularity in Nigeria. Gas-powered cars are getting more expensive to run, making electric ones attractive, even as much of the country struggles to get consistent access to electricity. (Bloomberg) EV chargers at federal buildings are being taken out of servicethe agency that runs federal buildings says they arent mission critical. This one boggles my mindthese chargers are already paid for and installed. What a waste. (The Verge) Congestion pricing that charges drivers entering the busiest parts of Manhattan has cut traffic, and now the program is hitting revenue goals, raising over $48 million in the first month. Expect more drama to come, though, as the Trump administration recently revoked authorization for the plan, and the MTA followed up with a lawsuit. (New York Times) New skyscrapers are designed to withstand hurricanes, but the buildings may fare poorly in less intense wind storms, according to a new study. (The Guardian) Ten new battery factories are scheduled to come online this year in the US. The industry is entering an uncertain time, especially with the new administrationwill this be a battery boom or a battery bust? (Inside Climate News) Proposed renewable-energy projects in northern Colombia are being met with opposition from Indigenous communities in the region. The area could generate 15 gigawatts of electricity, but local leaders say that they havent been consulted about development. (Associated Press) This farm in Virginia is testing out multiple methods designed to pull carbon out of the air at once. Spreading rock dust, compost, and biochar on fields can help improve yields and store carbon. (New Scientist)

Supermicro Computer filed annual financial reports late after an accounting dispute with ex-auditor EY.EY dropped Supermicro as a client after raising concerns about its internal financial governance.Supermicro said that after it replaced EY with another accounting firm, no issues were found.Supermicro Computer, the AI server manufacturer and Nvidia partner, has met the deadline for a late filing of its annual financial reports, and is blaming its former auditor EY for the delay.The tech company, which does business as Supermicro, filed its overdue 10-K annual filing for fiscal 2024 and the first two quarterly reports for fiscal 2025 on Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The filings came months late, putting Supermicro at risk of being delisted from the Nasdaq 100 for failing to meet compliance requirements. The company was granted an extension by Nasdaq in December."The Company is now current with its SEC financial reporting obligations," Supermicro said in a press release.In an explanatory note included in the filing, Supermicro blamed its previous auditor, EY, for the delay, saying that the reports were late "due to EY's stated concerns and subsequent resignation."According to the filing, theBig Four firmdropped Supermicro as a client in October 2024 after raising concerns to the board in July about the governance and transparency of the company's financial reporting and the integrity of its senior management.In August 2024, Hindenburg Research, a now-defunct US short-seller, said it found "glaring accounting red flags" in Supermicro's financial practices. Hindenburg's report cited "evidence of undisclosed related party transactions, sanctions and export control failures, and customer issues.""We disagreed with EY's decision to resign as our independent registered public accounting firm for a number of reasons," Supermicro said in the filing.Its reasons included that a number of audit procedures were left incomplete when EY stepped down and that a special committee set up to investigate concerns was still conducting its review.The server manufacturer also addressed the Hindenburg report in the filing. Supermicro denied any wrongdoing and said that the report "contained false or inaccurate statements about us, including misleading presentations of information we previously shared publicly."Supermicro, which has a market capitalization of just over $30 billion, appointed BDO, a Belgian-headquartered firm, as its new accountant in November.BDO found that the financial statements "present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company," according to the filings.The special committee's review "did not give rise to any substantial concerns about the integrity of our senior management or the Audit Committee, or their commitment to ensuring that our financial statements are materially accurate," Supermicro said in the SEC filing.EY declined to comment.Charles Liang, founder, president, and CEO of Supermicro, called Tuesday's filings "an important milestone" for the company.Supermicro's stock soared by more than 12% on Wednesday after it made the filing and regained compliance with Nasdaq's listing requirements.Supermicro was an early launch partner for Nvidia, AMD, and Intel for CPUs and GPU accelerators and has since ridden the wave of AI hype to success. The server manufacturer has seen its share price explode over recent years, climbing more than 1,000% since the start of 2022.Supermicro's shares are up 67% to date this year. The filings show that sales more than doubled from $7.12 billion to $14.9 billion in 2024.