Here's an article from Space.com about a book about teleportation and quantum computing.
http://space.com/businesstechnology/050708...eportation.html

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Forming opinions as we speak

Thanks for the pointer.
Always a fascinating subject - and for a change everyone else here is probably as much out of their depth as I am with truly understanding it!

This bit:
"When nanotechnology is mature, an automated assembly unit could be sent to a destination. On arrival, it would build the required robot explorer from the molecular level up. "

I can see this as a real possiblility - real soon. You'd need your Quantum computer complete with a set of blue prints for all the things you need and hey presto instant colonisation (mechanical) - much better than sending completed units that are bulky and might get damaged.

Will we ever see living matter succesfully "beamed up"? Who knows - it would be nice though!

And for information transfer it [teleportation] seems a neat way of getting around the light speed problem. Cool in itself.

Maybe this question is a bit "how long's a piece of string" - but how long are we away from the first true Quantum computers?