And maybe they'll even find Osama bin Laden...

Oh no! They're coming to get me... Help! Help! I'm being repressed!!

ha ha, tres amusant!

When the engineer who built it, tells you to be afraid, be afraid!

Did the american public think it was funny when Gearge Bush became president owing to the fact that millions of voters were struck off the electoral roles for names that sounded like those of convicted criminals because the software specification was so lose.

Will it be funny when a family member is denied a job because if a false entry in a security file?

Will you enjoy being audited by the tax office because your stock broker or the sahre registry was sloppy in their record keeping because of their poorly specified computer software?

I remember a childhood Sunday evening, when a smiling Walt Disney told me how technological revolution would bring about a more equitable distribution of wealth and leisure. As I saw and heard it then, he described the next phase of human evolution - a future in which humanity, freed of the drudgery (slavery) of toil, would be free to contemplate the world, pursue pleasure, investigate and philosophise.

The fact that he used the character of Goofy to represent yer average citizen (me), was probably a warning that it wouldn't be so easy. How right he was.

Brilliant contribution......thank you...

ellgo

he's trying to scare me, but it's not so easy- we have oz politicians standing between us and evil. and they do our thinking for us, too. she'll be right, mate!

(any previous implied critism of politicians or parliamentary rule is now inoperative. i can now reveal i was acting as an agent provocateur for the nsa. free-lance. really guys, i'm on the side of truth, justice, and the american way. always have been.)

hmm, there's a black suburban parked out front. they're coming to the front door! what can i do for=

I am ROFLMAO at the people who are continually asserting that the GOV”T is engendering a climate of fear in order to have their evil way with us, yet will uncritically accept the fear mongering associated with any new technology.

Whilst I am sure the Author is a knowledgable man, he certainly did NOT build a nano-computer of any description. The author has a chair as a Science COMMUNICATOR. Not an inventor, but someone who explains science to others. What he is, in fact, is a journalist. So Billie, use that critical faculty that you’ve been given please.

This article is a BEAT UP of the most incredible nature. This is truly the stuff of pseudo-science and rightly belongs in a science fiction novel.

Technology is neither good nor bad; it is how we choose to use it that matters. This is rightly a debate about privacy policy. Something scientists have little experience in, and perhaps journalists even less.

As of now, no practical quantum computer of any significance has been produced. Most scientists believe we are still decades away from a practical quantum computer. The problem at the moment is scalability. They are not far beyond the demonstration of concept stage in fact, with no evidence that it can be scaled up to useful levels of storage and manipulation.

No doubt quantum computing would be a revolution in information technology. But the idea that we are suddenly going to accumulate massive amounts of data on every single person over their lifetimes is not even remotely a near-future issue