Analog Computing: The Comeback???

One of the best signals that a topic becomes "hot" is that Nature Publishing Group opens a dedicated journal to this topic. Last August, the first issue of "Alternative Computing" from the Nature family was released. Indeed, recently there have been several efforts to use physical systems as 'alternative computers': D-Wave is using super-conducting qubits as an adiabatic quantum (or non-quantum?) computer, Light-Solver tries to use lasers in finding optimal solutions to hard problems, HP is developing memristor computation, 'Natural Computing' is developing "thermal" computing, companies like Toshiba and Fujitsu are commercializing products as `Bifurcation machines' and `Digital annealers'... Are we indeed seeing the `comeback' of analog computers? In the talk I will discuss the physical ideas behind some of these machines and try to provide some intuition and understanding on their advantages and disadvantages.