A D-Wave computer has been used for a machine learning vision task (treat references in the article to "quantum computer" or "qubits" with a qubit of salt):
Scientists have trained a quantum computer to recognize trees. That may not seem like a big deal, but the result means that researchers are a step closer to using such computers for complicated machine learning problems like pattern recognition and computer vision. The team used a D-Wave 2X computer, an advanced model from the Burnaby, Canada–based company that created the world's first quantum computer in 2007.
[...] In the new study, physicist Edward Boyda of St. Mary's College of California in Moraga and colleagues fed hundreds of NASA satellite images of California into the D-Wave 2X processor, which contains 1152 qubits. The researchers asked the computer to consider dozens of features—hue, saturation, even light reflectance—to determine whether clumps of pixels were trees as opposed to roads, buildings, or rivers. They then told the computer whether its classifications were right or wrong so that the computer could learn from its mistakes, tweaking the formula it uses to determine whether something is a tree. "Classification is a tricky problem; there are short trees, tall trees, trees next to each other, next to buildings—all sorts of combinations," says team member Ramakrishna Nemani, an earth scientist at NASA's Advanced Supercomputer Division in Mountain View, California.
After it was trained, the D-Wave was 90% accurate in recognizing trees [open, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172505] [DX] in aerial photographs of Mill Valley, California, the team reports in PLOS ONE. It was only slightly more accurate than a conventional computer would have been at the same problem. But the results demonstrate how scientists can program quantum computers to "look" at and analyze images, and opens up the possibility of using them to solve other complex problems that require heavy data crunching.
The 1,152 "qubit" system is not D-Wave's latest product.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @10:26PM (2 children)
Ah. "Quantum".
Another animal metaphor: "If it had been a snake, it'd have bitten me."
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday March 09 2017, @10:38PM
Rory: How can we be outside the Universe? The Universe is everything.
The Doctor: Imagine a great big soap bubble with one of those tiny little bubbles on the outside.
Rory: Okay.
The Doctor: Well it’s nothing like that.
[...]
Amy: Wait, so we’re in a tiny bubble universe sticking to the side of the bigger bubble universe?
The Doctor: Yeah. No! But if it help, yes.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday March 09 2017, @11:00PM
Amazingly, I didn't have Schrödinger's stray in mind at all when I spewed the headline. I was thinking of Google's cat video classification hypegasm from 2012. I guess I don't associate D-Wave with "quantum" since it's a mysterious annealer and not a proven quantum computer.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]