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Cisco, Qunnect claim quantum first with datacentre connectivity | Computer Weekly

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Cisco, Qunnect claim quantum first with datacentre connectivity | Computer Weekly


Qunnect and Cisco have unveiled what they say is the first entanglement-swapping demonstration of its kind over deployed metro-scale fibre using a commercial quantum networking system.

The demonstration combined Qunnect’s room-temperature quantum hardware with Cisco’s quantum networking software stack. The net result of the project is regarded by the partners as being able to bring practical quantum networks closer to scalable deployment, validating a spoke-and-hub model for scaling quantum networks through commercial datacentres.

The companies see these techniques as being able to underpin future ultra-secure links, quantum-safe architectures, and the ability to connect distributed quantum processors and datacentres.

Qunnect believes that one of the challenges in scaling real-world quantum networks is the practical realisation of protocols to route entanglement between network nodes. To achieve that, it says, requires entanglement “swapping”.

That is, the operation that extends entanglement from two nodes to multiple ones through an intermediate hub. Swapping itself is already established in quantum science, but the tech firms stress that performing it on telecom-compatible infrastructure under real-world constraints has remained rare in the industry. Loss, noise and hardware complexity make it far more challenging outside of controlled laboratory settings.

In addition, current quantum networks can be constrained by a complex physical “tether”, relying on a shared master laser to connect all nodes. By using Qunnect’s independent atomic sources, the experiment looked to remove the need for nodes to be physically “tethered” by shared lasers.

To validate their model, Cisco and Qunnect conducted a demonstration on the latter’s GothamQ testbed, which runs throughout New York City in a network that spans 17.6km of deployed telecom fibre connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan through QTD Systems’ datacentre at 60 Hudson Street.

At the centre of this integration is Qunnect’s turnkey Carina system, a technology capable of generating an entangled photon pair. To maintain signal integrity, Qunnect’s automatic polarisation controllers (APCs) continuously compensate for polarisation drift – a persistent challenge in deployed fibre that has historically limited real-world networking.

These technologies were integrated with Cisco’s unified quantum networking software stack, functioning as a “digital air traffic controller” for the city-wide network. The software autonomously coordinates Qunnect’s turnkey Carina hardware across geographically separated nodes.

The collaboration is said to have generated record swapping rates of over 1.7 million pairs/hour locally and 5,400 pairs/hour over deployed fibre. This is said to be nearly 10,000 times better than previous benchmarks using similar platforms. As the first demonstration of polarisation entanglement swapping over deployed fibre, the system maintained over 99% polarisation fidelity.

End nodes used room-temperature detectors, concentrating cryogenic equipment solely at the central hub to significantly reduce the cost of network scaling. Using independent entanglement sources meant no shared lasers, allowing for modular network expansion.

Cisco and Qunnect regard the results from the trial as demonstrating the integrated system can operate reliably in one of the world’s most demanding urban environments, providing a deployable blueprint for distributed quantum computing and secure metro-scale quantum networks.

This decoupling of nodes allowed for a scalable hub-and-spoke architecture for quantum networking, enabling new endpoint nodes to be added without dedicated synchronisation links to all other nodes. The two firms say this achievement serves as a first proof point in a journey towards practical, entanglement-based quantum networks, laying the foundation for distributed quantum computing.

“Entanglement swapping is a fundamental operation in the quantum internet,” said Mehdi Namazi, co-founder and chief science officer for Qunnect. “Today, we not only broke the record for rate and scalability, we did so in New York City using some of the noisiest, most chaotic fibre on earth. This is a milestone the field has been waiting for.”

Reza Nejabati, head of quantum research at Cisco, added: “This milestone accelerates our quantum networking vision. Our orchestration software enabled field-ready entanglement distribution and swapping – foundational capabilities for distributed quantum computing and the global quantum grid.”



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One of Our Favorite 360 Cams Is 35 Percent Off

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One of Our Favorite 360 Cams Is 35 Percent Off


Tired of taking your action camera on an adventure, only to get home and find out you missed the action with a bad angle? One option is to switch to a 360-degree action cam, so you can capture all of the action and then edit down to just the good stuff later. One of our favorite options, the DJI Osmo 360, is currently available for just $390 on Amazon, a $209 discount from its usual price, and it comes with a selfie stick and an extra battery.

The DJI Osmo 360 achieves its impressive all-around video quality by leveraging a pair of 1/1.1-inch sensors, larger than some other offerings, and by supporting 10-bit color. You can really see that in the camera’s output, with colors that are vivid and bold, to the point that you may need to dial them back a bit in post if you want something more natural. With support for up to 50 frames per second at 8K when recording in 360 degrees, or 120 fps at 4K when shooting with only one sensor, you’ll have plenty of material to work with. In our testing, it ran for just shy of two hours at 30 fps, which is also around the time the internal storage had filled up anyway.

If you plan on catching any serious discussions with your Osmo 360, you’ll be pleased to know it connects directly to DJI’s line of wireless lavalier microphones, including the excellent and frequently discounted DJI Mic 2 and Mic Mini. If you want to mount it to something other than the included 1.2-meter selfie stick, it has both DJI’s magnetic attachment system and a more traditional ¼”-20 tripod mount. The DJI Mimo app lets you control the camera and adjust any settings, and there’s even a simple editor for on-the-fly production. For desktop users, DJI Studio has even more in-depth settings and editing options, in case you don’t want to pay for Premiere.

The DJI Osmo 360 is one of our favorite action cameras, and is particularly appealing at the discounted price point, but make sure to check out our full review for more info, or head over to our full roundup to see what else is available.



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Artemis II: Everything We Know as Its Crew Approaches the Far Side of the Moon

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Artemis II: Everything We Know as Its Crew Approaches the Far Side of the Moon


On day six of its mission, Artemis II is closing in on the far side of the moon. Meanwhile, the historic journey has not been without fascinating and curious stories, from the images and videos that its four crew members have shared with the world to the inevitable unforeseen events—including a tricky toilet situation.

A few hours before the crew begins its lunar flyby, here’s how things are going on Artemis II.

When Will They Reach the Far Side of the Moon?

While Artemis II won’t actually land on the moon (that won’t happen until Artemis IV), that does not make this mission any less compelling. Once the Artemis II astronauts finish flying over the dark side of the moon, they will have the historic distinction of being the humans who have traveled the farthest from Earth.

They will also test all the systems needed for future lunar missions, validating life support, navigation, spacesuits, communications, and other human operations in deep space.

But when are they supposed to reach this far-off point? First, the Orion capsule reached what is known as the moon’s “sphere of influence” on Sunday night. This is the point where the moon’s gravitational force is stronger than the force of the Earth.

At present, Orion is circling the moon. Once the capsule is on the dark side of the moon, approximately 7,000 kilometers from the surface, communications with Earth will be interrupted. For six hours, they will be able to view the far side of the moon, something no human being has ever seen with their own eyes—not even the astronauts of the Apollo program, as this region of the moon was always too dark or difficult for them to reach.

That six-hour flyby of the dark side of the moon is expected to begin Monday, April 6, at 2:45 pm EDT and 7:45 pm London time.

After that, the capsule will use the moon’s gravity to propel itself back to Earth. Splashdown, when the astronauts reach Earth, is scheduled for April 10 in the Pacific Ocean, not far from the coast of California, the tenth day of the mission.

Remember that you can follow the live broadcast of the Artemis II mission from NASA’s official channels.

What Has Happened so Far?

Since its successful launch on April 1 from Kennedy Space Center, the Artemis II crew has shared several spectacular photos, such as the featured image in this post, which shows mission specialist Christina Koch looking down at Earth through one of Orion’s main cabin windows.

This incredible photo of a Earth, taken on April 2, went viral on social media, referencing the famous “Blue Marble” image captured by the Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972.

View of Earth taken by astronaut Reid Wiseman from the window of the Orion spacecraft after completing the translunar injection maneuver on April 2, 2026.Photograph: Reid Wiseman/NASA/Getty Images



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The DOJ Misled a Judge About How It’s Using Voter Roll Data

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The DOJ Misled a Judge About How It’s Using Voter Roll Data


Last week in Rhode Island, in a hearing over the Trump administration’s efforts to access the state’s unredacted voter lists, US district judge Mary McElroy asked a Department of Justice lawyer what the agency had been doing with the voter roll data it already amassed from other states in recent months.

“We have not done anything yet,” said Eric Neff, the acting chief of the agency’s voting section, a core part of the DOJ’s civil rights division that focuses on enforcing federal laws that protect the right to vote. Neff added that the data the DOJ collected from states—which can include Social Security numbers, drivers licenses, dates of birth, and addresses—was being kept separate.

“The United States is taking extra concern to make sure that we’re complying with the Privacy Act in every conceivable way,” Neff added. The Privacy Act of 1974 regulates how government agencies collect and use personally identifiable information about US residents.

But Neff was not telling the truth: The DOJ, he later admitted, was pooling the data and already analyzing it to identify voting irregularities.

In a court document filed on March 27, Neff walked back his claims. “The United States represented that each data set was stored separately,” Neff wrote. “The United States also stated that no analysis had yet been conducted on the data. To correct and clarify the record, preliminary internal data analysis of the nonpublic voter registration data has begun. In particular, the Civil Rights Division has begun the process of identifying and quantifying the number and type of duplicate and deceased registered voters in each state.”

The revelation confirms what was widely speculated, which is that the DOJ appears to be pooling the data and using it to identify potential issues with suspected voting irregularities ahead of the midterms, which is a core part of Trump’s broad attack on elections.

Neff and the DOJ did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Critics have grown increasingly concerned about the DOJ’s voting section, which has undergone a stark transformation since President Donald Trump has retaken office. A newly installed coterie of inexperienced but ultra-loyal lawyers in the DOJ’s voting section, many of whom have supported election denial conspiracy theories, have spent their time on forcing states to hand over their voter roll information.

The initiative began in May last year, when the Department of Justice sent letters to election officials in at least 48 states and Washington, DC, asking for unredacted voter rolls. Some Republican-led states immediately handed over the information, but dozens of others pushed back. As a result, Neff and his colleagues have sued 30 states, asking courts to force them to hand over the information. So far, courts have sided with the states, with judges already dismissing cases in California, Michigan, and Oregon.

In many of the lawsuits, state election officials pointed out the huge security risk involved in sharing such sensitive data, especially when it was unclear how the data would be stored or who it would be shared with. “We still have no idea what the government is doing with this data,” says David Becker, the head of the Center for Election Innovation and Research and a former Justice Department lawyer. “No idea where it is being stored, how it is being protected, or who has access to it. This data is incredibly sensitive. If someone has any of these three data points on any of us, Social Security number, driver’s license number, or date of birth, they can wreck us financially. This is why the states protect this data, and they do a good job of it.”



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