223
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2026
223 points (97.9% liked)
Technology
88796 readers
4814 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
If they are insinuating that because it's cheap it's not sophisticated think again.
You can get motion sensors based on quantum dynamics principles for just $1, they are in all phones today, and those are based on extremely sophisticated theory and production methods. But industry has managed to find ways to make them extremely cheap despite that.
So putting the sophisticated in quotes based on the low price is an oversimplification.
That said, there are probably more sophisticated miniaturized options for spying than the cheap gadget they used.
Sophisticated is commonly used as a comparison to other sinilar things. So a sophisticated computer in 1980 is different from one in 2026 because technology advanced significantly. A lot of common features on cell phones would have been called sophisticated 20 years ago, but not anymore.
In this case sophisticated is intended to mean relative to other similar devices. Since this is a commodity electronic device you can easily buy for under $13 it doesn't fit the common usage of 'sophisticated' for 2026.
Language is messy. I sometimes think of sophisticated as the opposite of simple.
It kind of is, isn't it?
Edit:
Goddam people are contrarian here.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sophisticated
Simple is the first antonym (opposite) stated, and simplistic is number 4.
This place is a cesspool sometimes 🤡
No, it isn't.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ461260665047)
I stand corrected. 😋
Depends on what you mean by is.
And depends on what you mean by depends. 🤔
🤗
Complex is the opposite of simple.
Complex is a synonym of sophisticated within this use case
One does not exclude the other:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sophisticated
Simple is literally the first antonym to sophisticated!
A computer from the 80's is still a sophisticated device.
Not compared to modern top end hardware, which is how the word is used in this context.
Ok, but you could also say a simple pc about a modern pc, that does not mean it's actually simple. It's because it is used in place of ordinary. And ordinary also doesn't mean simple in the literal sense. Even a "simple" mobile phone is in fact not simple.
Which sensor in phones uses quantum states? Do you mean things like SQUIDs? They are a completely different beast than classical sensors like MEMS.
Motionsensors
Do you mean the Soli radar? That ended up in what, 2-3 phone models altogether?
Most phones do not have motion sensors.
No literally a common motion sensor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_sensor
One of these are the perfectly common motion sensor that detects if you move your phone, which is based on quantum phenomenon, like the phase shift between photons send in different directions.
None of the current phone IMUs utilise quantum phenomena for measurement. They're MEMS/FOG/RLG systems.
Quantum IMUs are the size that requires rack mounting.
OK but still the GPS using timing based on an atomic clock in space is absolutely sophisticated, and that is in even the cheapest smartphones today.
Your claim was quantum phenomena utilisation in phone sensors.
Let's stop moving the goalposts please.
I'm just tiring of the negativity here, so this is my last response in this thread.
https://qt.eu/applications/how-your-smartphone-uses-quantum-mechanics
https://science.epochsandechoes.com/7-mind-blowing-ways-your-smartphone-secretly-uses-quantum-physics-to-power-everyday-features-beac4d922130
Okay, now you're literally just chewing words to become meaningless.
On this basis, every fucking piece of technology is quantum technology because guess what, the ENTIRE UNIVERSE WE FUCKING LIVE IN is adherent to quantum physics and mechanics, and anything, any technology, any kind of energy transference, can be broken down to some kind of quantum phenomena which would be either directly or indirectly used. A simple steam engine can be quantum. Your bedroom lights - regardless if you use LED, incandescent, neon, or a fucking candle.
The very definition of a quantum sensor is that it utilises a quantum effect DIRECTLY, instead of relying on a transitive property that we measure in a different way. A CCD sensor might rely on "a quanta of light" therefore making it "quantum technology", but it won't be a quantum sensor.
You are annoying and uninformed, by far the most of the universe as we perceive it as human beings is Newtonian.
Now piss off with your ignorant crap.
The only ignorant one here is you, buddy.
All the Newtonian mechanics can be described as a much more precise quantum function.
But this is precisely the difference I've been talking about regarding what can be considered a quantum sensor.
Observing a Newtonian system maketh not a quantum sensor - even though, again, all the observations are the result of quantum functions and quantum phenomena. To utilise the previous light example, this is akin to facing away from a light and using the shadows it casts to estimate the properties of the light. Whereas a true quantum sensor would be akin to measuring the light's properties directly, instead of the transitional properties of the aforementioned shadows.
Furthermore, in no scientific debate will you ever qualify by a flurry of ad hominems followed by telling your opponent to "piss off". That is the strategy of a sore loser who cares not about facts but about being right (even when being wrong) above all else. And that, my friend, goes against science in general.
Read your own links!
First link: "But your smartphone is not a quantum computer, yet"
The title was a question. The answer the article you linked gave was "it doesn't use quantum."
The second link was describing regular effects as having quantum origins. Which is everything! Everything everywhere has a basis in quantum mechanics.
"Radio waves are photons, and their behavior is described by quantum electrodynamics. "
Yes, underpinning the entire universe is quantum mechanics. The light from a campfire is photons. No one would write an article saying, "Cavemen used a sophisticated quantum light source."
Your claim was that smartphone motion sensors were quantum. You linked to Wikipedia about quantum sensors which did not say anything about phone sensors.
Apple and all phone manufacturers say they use mems motion sensors.
You were wrong. Get over yourself.
And read the links you provide as proof.
I never claimed that it was, quantum computers are still experimental.
Sorry I didn't care to read the rest, because you started off with such nonsense.
This is also in the text:
Can you really not see that you are wrong? Or is it THAT hard to say "ah damn, got that wrong"?
Yet you linked the article that made that statement and then refuted it!
Quote from the article you linked:
https://qt.eu/applications/how-your-smartphone-uses-quantum-mechanics
Where it gives an example of how your phone uses quantum mechanics.
Yes a photon. Light is photons. The light from a caveman fire is photons. I already explained that.
I mean everything electric is a quantum sensor not to defend anything
edit: further g sensors and accelerometers implemented by piezoelectricity are quantum sensors. They just use materials that make the sensing easy
If the device doesn't use quantum effects directly, it isn't a quantum sensor.
Otherwise words have no meaning and textbooks would call 1860's steam engines electric quantum engines because materials are held together with electric effects and atoms have quantum properties.
Well everything uses quantum effects directly at least the highs field like you said. Your definition is therefore bad. But the examples do use gravitons because they measure gravity the same a camera uses photons to measure light, which are both quants and are measured in "easy" ways. Just because you are posh about it and try to define it as only the large hardron collider
I am extremely ignorant on these things. If what you say is true, it stands to reason that all the claims that "only 3 companies can produce memory chips" are most likely bullshit.
I hate the way the world is going right now.
The 3 major makers Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron dominate the market, but they are definitely not alone. especially not since China has entered the market in force.