Austrian Scientists at the IQOQI (Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information) have created the first Quantum Byte consisting of 8 Calcium Ions.

Quantum Computing is still in it's infancy. The Quantum Byte is a step forward towards the Quantum Computer (see Wiki for a definition). Quantum Computers are supposed to be super fast and solve problems conventional computers can not. Hey, I just want to surf the web faster...

The IQOQI research results are published in the new Nature magazine. The US based National Institute of Technology in Colorado only was able to great 6 bits so far. Their results are also published in the Nature magazine. More details on the German Technology Review edition (German).