Quantum computer

How much longer before the first Quantum computer will appear. This has the potential to revolutionize the computer world.

Boffin melds quantum processor with quantum RAM • The Register

In his quantum computer, he says, computational steps take a few billionths of a second, which is about the same as you get with a classical computer. But unlike a classical computer, a quantum computer can handle a large number of these calculations simultaneously.

Matteo Mariantoni and his quantum computer

As Mariantoni explains in a video provided by the University of California at Santa Barabara, where he is a postdoctoral fellow, the two central quantum phenomena upon which quantum computing are based are superposition and entanglement.
Quantum computing may still be far from being a viable commercial process, but Mariantoni argues that it's time to get going. "We can ... create something that is very close to a classical processor, and we can use it for implementing pretty complicated quantum softwares," he argues. "My feeling is that, at this stage – and it's really true – industries will be interested in investing money and effort in developing a large-scale quantum computer."
He may be right. With the increasing complexity and cost of shrinking silicon-transistor features in classical computing manufacturing, the possibility of commercial quantum computing is compelling – even if there remains a tremendous amount of work to be done by both researchers and engineers.
Just like there was in the years between Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain's first demonstration of a transfer resistor in late 1947, and Texas Instrument's marketing of the first commercial silicon transistor in 1954.

Update 20-Jan-2011

Quantum computing could head to 'the cloud', study says.

Quantum computing will use the inherent uncertainties in quantum physics to carry out fast, complex computations. A report in Science shows the trick can extend to "cloud" services such as Google Docs without loss of security. This "blind quantum computing" can be carried out without a cloud computer ever knowing what the data is.

Source BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16636580