Posted by
Guest in
Following is a guest post from Gary Cohen:
Just a little more than a year ago, IBM began a global conversation about the promise of a smarter planet. Since then, we’ve worked with governments and institutions across the world to implement innovative solutions to make companies, industries and cities literally work better.
Yet, the responsibility of building a smarter, more sustainable planet extends well beyond these interactions with a few, select decision-makers. All of us – from parents and teachers to future generations of citizens and leaders – play a part.
Earlier today, IBM and Disney unveiled a new SmarterPlanet exhibit at INNOVENTIONS at Epcot in Orlando, Florida. In exploring this exhibit, millions of Epcot visitors from every corner of the world will understand the individual role they play in creating a smarter planet. When they leave, we hope they are inspired to consider how they can contribute to making the world work better.
The exhibit brings to life the many ways technology is woven into the way we live, work and play. It demonstrates how – by embedding sensors into everyday items – intelligence is being built into things we wouldn’t recognize as computers: our cars, appliances, roadways, power grids, clothes, even natural systems like agriculture and waterways. By connecting these systems and infusing them with intelligence, we can be more efficient, more productive and more sustainable.
The exhibit is powered by a new IBM smart data center that allows visitors to get a behind-the-scenes view of the technology and infrastructure required to address issues like reducing road traffic and city crime or improving food safety and local water supplies.
IBM and Disney have enjoyed a strong partnership for nearly 50 years. I think the reason for this is simple, and it lies in our shared values. IBM’s vision of a smarter planet is driven by our commitment to delivering innovation that matters for the world. That’s not so far afield from the importance that Disney places on Innovation, Community and Optimism. Together, these values speak to a shared sense of hope about what is possible in the world. At the SmarterPlanet exhibit at INNOVENTIONS, we offer visitors a glimpse of what is possible when hopes and ideas meet technological reality.
Gary Cohen is the general manager of IBM’s Communications Sector.
Editor’s note: CNET (among others) has a very nice recap of the exhibition.
Posted by
Steve Hamm in
The scene inside The Plant Accelerator
Much has been written about how big retailers use RFID tags to keep track of product inventory,but now an agricultural research lab in Australia is using the wireless sensors to keep track of experimental plants. The goal: to quickly and efficiently develop new varieties of food crops, such as wheat and barley, that can withstand disease and drought, and thrive even in poor soil conditions.
Using IBM computers designed to conserve energy, the University of Adelaide, in Australia, has just completed construction on The Plant Accelerator, the largest test facility of its kind in the world. Using an elaborate system of conveyor belts, digital imaging gear, and robotic equipment, technicians can continuously monitor the vitality of up to 2,400 radio-tagged plants, each in its own pot. By linking 3-D images and data to records of each plant’s genetic makeup, researchers can accelerate the process of designing hardier plants–cutting the time it takes to develop a new variety by perhaps 70%.
The new system will provide critical insights for breeding the kinds of crops that could help overcome food shortages in the face of global warming. The new plant varieties could be particularly useful for developing nations in Africa and Asia where over-planting and other poor farming techniques have depleted the soil. They could allow farmers there to increase yields, so these countries could be better able to feed their people.
The facility’s tech staff designed the system with the help of Datacom Systems, an IBM partner based in New Zealand, and uses a software package from LemnaTec, a German company, to control the imaging and analysis system.
Eventually, Accelerator technicians will be equipped with handheld PDAs connected wirelessly to the computer database, allowing them to fetch vital information from facility’s IBM blade servers, which use a fraction of the power of more conventional computers, while they’re examining individual plants. They also plan to add CAT scanners so they get 3-D images of the plants’ roots in addition to stems and leaves.
Posted by
Guest in
Following is a guest post by Bill Rapp:
With all the focus on making healthcare more efficient, medical imaging procedures like MRIs and CT scans are a natural place to start. That’s why IBM and the Mayo Clinic are working to automate the detection of deadly brain aneurysms.
Traditionally, a patient suspected of having a brain aneurysm due to a stroke, traumatic injury or family history would undergo an invasive test using a catheter, a technique with risks of neurologic complications. To improve detection using a non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging approach, the Mayo Clinic and IBM worked to create automated detection algorithms to help radiologists pinpoint the location of aneurysms in the brain from MRI images.
The new algorithm is 95% effective at identifying likely aneurysms compared with 70% effectiveness for manual interpretation by radiologists. Radiologists still make the final call, but their attention can be focused on the most likely trouble areas, making the reading process faster and more accurate.
The key to this innovation was complete automation of the imaging and detection process, eliminating the need for human guidance to start the detection procedure. All of this must be done in real time with the results delivered to the radiologist in a timely and predictable manner.
This project sets the stage for introducing other automated detection techniques in the future. This framework can be extended to other imaging modalities like CT scans, other body parts such as the liver and kidney and other diseases like cancer. We’re also working on more flexible and affordable ways to deliver this smart technology, for example, through cloud computing.
Fully automated detection, flexibly delivered to the point of care is the future of radiology and other medical procedures and is a great example of smarter healthcare.
Bill Rapp, IBM’s CTO of Healthcare and Life Sciences and co-director of the Medical Imaging Informatics Innovation Center.
by Sharon Nunes
Have you ever thought that one day you might turn on a faucet and no water would come out? Did you ever consider that getting a glass of water from a restaurant could cost money? While these scenarios might seem far-fetched today, a water crisis is looming — and if we don’t get serious about smarter water management, it can – and will – become a reality.
The world’s population tripled in the 20th century, and according to the World Water Council, the use of renewable water resources has grown sixfold in that timeframe. Within the next fifty years, the world population is expected to increase by another 40 to 50 percent. This population growth – coupled with industrialization and urbanization – will result in an increasing demand for water. But overall, little has been done to address this crucial issue. Consider the Clean Water Act of 1972. Although it was put into place to create an era of technological innovation, the promise is still largely unfulfilled.
In his recent speech ushering in the Decade of Smart, our chairman, Sam Palmisano, pointed out that applying smarter technologies to drive cost out of legacy systems and institutions—doing more with less—would be critical to near-term and long-term economic prospects. He emphasized that we need to do more than extend the useful lifetime of our infrastructures – we must ensure that next-generation systems are inherently more efficient, flexible and resilient.
Up to 50 percent of usable water is lost due to leaky pipes. To put this into perspective, imagine that when you fill up your car with gas, half of that gas drips to the ground, wasted, instead of flowing into your tank. The good news is that there are many ways to extend the useful lifetime of our water infrastructures around the world – and to look at water management in new ways and build new, smarter systems that take into account the true value of this critical resource.
For example, IBM is working with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) to provide deep insight into the management of their water supply and usage so they can improve the quality of their water while reducing the costs associated with minimizing pollution. SFPUC, which treats an average of 80-90 million gallons of wastewater per day during dry weather and up to 370 million gallons of combined wastewater and storm runoff per day during the rainy season, is working with IBM to develop smarter management of the city’s 1,000 miles of sewer system and three treatment facilities.
We are also working with water utilities around the world – in Europe, Australia, China, Japan, to name a few – to help improve the availability and quality of drinking water and to help add efficiency to the management of water management systems.
With advances in technology—sophisticated sensor networks, smart meters, deep computing and analytics—we can be smarter about how we manage our planet’s water. We can monitor, measure and analyze entire water ecosystems, from rivers and reservoirs to the pumps and pipes in our homes. We can give all the people, organizations, businesses, communities and nations dependent on a continuing supply of freshwater—that is, all of us—a single, reliable, up-to-the-minute view of the way we use water. And by doing so, we can help build a sustainable, smarter planet.
Sharon Nunes is vice president of IBM Big Green Innovations, a portfolio of environmentally-focused initiatives at IBM.
On any given day, IBM researchers and scientists are hard at work developing new technologies and applying them in imaginative and innovative ways.
But before many of these innovations see the light of day as market-ready products, they get tested on the front lines as part of a unique program called First-of-a-Kind (or FOAK), which pairs IBM researchers with clients to bring incredible discoveries and possibilities into view . . .
Here’s a video that tells the wonderful tale about how IBM researchers and clients came together to create an innovative solution for a hospital based on clever stream computing software.
As the FOAK projects are proving, it is the dynamic nature of this close interaction with IBM clients and the changing forces of the real world that drives our innovation and brings it to market at an ever-quickening pace.
By 2050, nearly three quarters of our planet’s population will live in cities. Public safety will be a key factor in determining which city they choose, as well as determining the economic health of the city. IBM is working with clients and municipalities to help make cities smarter and safer. It helped New York reduce its crime by 27% using real-time data integrated data analysis, and helped Singapore significantly reduce traffic congestion. Learn more about how IBM is helping make public safety smarter.
Posted by
Karl Roche in
This week we heard Sam Palmisano talk about educating people for future jobs, not past jobs. With unreal timing IBM Ireland is attending and taking an active part at the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition in Dublin (14 – 16 Jan).
Now in it’s 46th year, the exhibition is the culmination of a competition that encourages and recognises second level students from right across Ireland, with 500 student exhibitions around 40,000 student visitors.
In addition to the Smarter Planet stand, IBM is taking part in the “Learning Technology for the 21st century” and will be presenting a “Smarter Planet Award” for the project that best exemplifies making intelligent use of data collected from the real world – which is at the heart of making a smarter planet.
Do check out what the Ireland team are doing over on their blog where they are already posting videos and updates from the event as well as the winners of the special award. Or get along tomorrow if you are in the area.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=82628eb4-fb74-419b-a0d4-160f1622d5da)
Today I am beginning the installation of a solar energy system for my house. The aspect that is different in this system is how I will pay for it. I have thought about solar energy for a long time, however I have never had the appetite to invest the huge up-front cost of the system. When my electricity bill reached a new all-time high this past July here in Los Angeles, I decided to do a little research. With one search of Google using the search terms “solar lease California”, I simply called the first two companies that showed in the search results. I thought that leasing would provide a more attractive financial proposition than purchasing.
After a couple of phone calls to these two companies, I discovered an even more enticing program. I could simply have one of these companies install the system on my house and pay them for the power it generates. I wouldn’t pay for, lease, maintain, nor own the system. They would effectively become another electricity supplier that just happened to reside on my roof. The cash outlay was $1000 to pay for the permits and installation basics. Beyond that I will only pay for the electricity it generates. The cost per unit will be half of what the traditional electric company charges, the price is locked in for eighteen years with them maintaining the equipment, and any extra energy that the system generates that I don’t use, goes back into the grid and I get a refund on my traditional bill. This is a completely turn-key program that I didn’t need to do a thing to participate, including securing the permits, etc. This program sounds pretty good!
So, today the crew began the installation. It will take a few days to get done and then I will be part of a greener community of people around the world! Be sure to talk to the solar energy provider in your area to see if they will offer a similar program.
Now, I need to to convert my cars to hydrogen and them I will truly be the Smarter Consumer!
Please let us know what you’re doing to be a smarter consumer!
Twitter Helps My “Smart Home” Reduce Energy Usage and Trim Electricity Bills by One-Third
by Andy Stanford-Clark
The science of how things work has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. As a young lad, I developed a way for my Mum to dry her washing outside without it getting wet when it rained. I set up a simple buzzer that would go off when a sensor detected falling rain. When Mum heard the signal, it was time to grab the laundry off the line.
Today I’m still trying to “connect the dots” of how my family and I can pursue a lifestyle that reduces our use of natural resources.
Using the same “messaging” software I work on with my development team at IBM’s software lab in Hursley, UK, I’ve made my 16th Century cottage on the Isle of Wight into a modern-day “smart home,” so I know exactly how much electricity and water I’m using, and when I’m using them.
While some might scoff at this, having this knowledge has enabled my family to reduce our personal carbon footprint and slash energy bills by one-third.
Here’s how it works: About a dozen wireless sensors are hooked up to the electricity and water systems and other things in the house. The sensors collect information, which is fed into an analytics system that makes “intelligent” decisions based upon that information. The updates are distributed to a display in my house, and as a stream of messages on Twitter, the social networking communications tool, which I can watch on the web, or on my mobile.
The “tweets,” or brief status messages, talk about how much electricity or water is being used, or even if a mouse has been caught in a trap in the attic. I can see unusual activity: if I’ve left on a heater, my home “talks to me,” via Twitter, and I can go find what’s causing the spike in electricity use.
The information on display has become part of the home’s ambient background, like having a light on in the kitchen. You know it’s there: but unless the light starts flickering, you don’t pay much attention to it. Unless my home “tweets” me that something unusual is happening, such as a window left open on a cold day, the messages blend into the household’s background.
Feeling good about helping the environment can be contagious. What if all of us got involved? According to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, 47 percent of the country’s carbon emissions come from the way the nation generates heat. The DECC has set a goal of having “smart meters” in all homes in the UK by 2020 to monitor gas and electricity usage.
If you don’t want to wait until 2020, you don’t need a Ph.D. to install and use the relatively inexpensive gadgets available to monitor your energy use and to begin conserving energy immediately.
Sometimes what we do for ourselves can benefit many others.
Like many commuters, I want to spend the least amount of time on my commute.
Strong winds or fog can delay the ferries running between my home on the Isle of Wight and my workplace near Winchester.
By tapping into data available online about the location of the Red Jet ferries, I began timing my arrival at the dock to when a ferry would actually leave. I began sharing this information via Twitter to other passengers. To its credit, the Red Funnel line saw the value in this information, and now the company provides a constant stream of information about the ferry schedule to their passengers who follow the company on Twitter. This is not ferry personnel posting the information to Twitter manually, it’s a tweetject (an object that twitters!). That’s a tricky idea for some people, but it’s at the core of building a smarter planet.
These are examples of how all of us have the ability to make our entire planet “smarter.” We just need to use sensors that operate individually to instrument the world around us, link together the information streams the sensors provide in a network, and then apply intelligence in the form of an analytics system that can recommend appropriate actions.
I look at my “smart home” and use of social networking tools for commuting as steps that I can take as an individual.
If enough of us take steps at the micro level, momentum will build. Smarter buidlings are coming as we think about structures differently: seeing homes not just as living spaces, but as living systems; seeing offices not just as static structures where work is done, but as manifestations of all the ways the world works.
Click to listen to podcast: Building a Smarter Planet – Patents
Manny Schecter, IBM Chief Patent Counsel told me that “patents are the currency of innovation.”
Approximately 150,000 U.S. patents are granted to investors each year and for the last 17 years, IBM has received more U.S. patents than any other company in the world. According to IFI Patent Intelligence, in 2009 IBM was issued 4,914 U.S. patents. So IBM is clearly a major player in the world of innovation.
Yet it’s still the case that some don’t know what IBM does. It’s clear based on numbers that IBM is an “innovative” company, sure, but what does IBM invent and why?
What I found out from speaking with Kathryn Guarini and John Gunnels, two IBMers with a number of IBM patents is that, believe it or not, inventors don’t want to spend their time reinventing the wheel to pad their portfolio, they’re looking toward innovation that matters (a company line which I understand better now that I’ve spoken with some true innovators). Guarini, director of Systems and Technology Development for IBM Systems and Technology Group says, “We want to innovate where there is real value. We don’t want to innovate everywhere, all the time.”
Mr. Gunnels is a research scientist in the area of high performance computing. He has worked on several projects and is named on multiple patents related to IBM’s Blue Gene Supercomputer which was awarded the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2009. Blue Gene systems have helped map the human genome, investigate medical therapies, safeguard nuclear arsenals, simulate radioactive decay, simulate brain power, envision financial scenarios, predict weather and climate trends, and identify fossil fuels. And he told me that there have actually been cases where Blue Gene predicts the outcome of an experiment, which were only later verified with an actual experiment.
Several patents have been issued around Blue Gene in 2009, but consider another patent which IBM was issued this year:
U.S. Patent 7,612,655 – “Alarm System for Hearing Impaired Individuals Having Hearing Assistive Implanted Devices”
This patent describes a method for alerting profoundly deaf sleepers to danger, such as fire and carbon monoxide, or to circumstances such as a doorbell, phone call or wakeup alarm. The concept works best for deaf individuals who have cochlear implants. These people typically deactivate their implants when they bathe or sleep for reasons of comfort and safety. They do so by detaching a small device normally worn outside the ear, and which normally functions as a signal transmitter to an implanted component. During sleep or bathing activities, they typically can’t or won’t wear a device that vibrates, nor can they rely on flashing lights to catch their attention. The patented method enables the implanted component to begin buzzing abnormally or stay silent, depending on what occasion for which the user has programmed it to respond.
As an IBMer, it’s a source of job-related pride to see companies like mine investing in something that actually makes a difference for our company and for the world. “Innovation that matters”, not just a catchy slogan or corporate mantra. It is one of our company values. Something we, as IBMers, take pride in and use as inspiration everyday. And I think that the real thing to take away from all the reports on patents and patent leadership is this: a great number of these innovations being patented are helping to make the world safer, cleaner, more efficient and most notably, smarter; for people, societies, and for the world.
To read about more IBM innovations and their impact, see this article from IBM Research.
