There are billions of devices that now talk to each other.
You have a car that can talk to a mechanic, to signal the fact that it needs a repair; you have store shelves that can talk to a supply chain when they’re running low on inventory of a certain product. You have hundreds of billions of smart things — sensors, cameras, cars, shipping containers, intelligent appliances, tiny, traceable chips by the hundreds of millions — all becoming interconnected and making the smallest exchange more productive, efficient, and better.
Today’s smarter products represent a new generation of capabilities that provide increasingly multi-dimensional and personalized functions. And as these devices talk, they create systems that didn’t exist before.
Here’s an example from this week (click on the image for larger view):
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Steve Hamm in
For decades, scientists, engineers and designers have been attaching all manner of digital devices to human beings. Their quest is called wearable computing. Today, the smartphone makes computers essentially wearable and soon-to-be ubiquitous, but there are still plenty of uses for specialized wearable devices, especially in the healthcare field, and there’s one class of device that seems to be on its way to mass acceptance: the fitness monitor. It’s a handy tool for millions of people who made New Year’s resolutions to lose weight.
One of the pioneers in the field, BodyMedia Inc. in Pittsburgh, has just introduced an update of its BodyMedia FIT system that not only tracks physical activity but also provides personalized feedback. The system includes software from IBM that is most often used by businesses–but in this case helps individuals improve their well being. “This is a big step for us,” says Ivo Stivoric, the chief technology officer at BodyMedia and one of its founders. “This helps consumers connect the dots. They don’t just see the data. They get recommendations on what they can do to get back on track.”
The system demonstrates the potential for a combination of sensor technology, analytics software and easy-to-use interfaces to unlock the mysteries of the human body and produce insights that people can immediately put to use to make themselves healthier and happier.
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Steve Hamm in
Some argue that in this era of austerity, the US government can no longer afford to launch bold new programs aimed at making the country work better. Not so. But it’s true that big projects have to be approached differently. These days, government needs to work collaboratively with businesses, universities and community organizations to get big stuff done and boost the dynamism of the US economy.
Today, IBM is convening a conference, US Competitiveness: the Next 100 Years, to generate ideas for rekindling America’s competitiveness in the years ahead. For live blogging from the event, check in between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Please Tweet to #uscompetes.
The latest:
4:45 p.m. Close – Jonathan Fanton, Roosevelt House Fellow:
“A vision of a fair, just and humane society will advance our economic gains, if we can achieve it.”
We can’t count on government alone or industries to carry the burden of our reinvention.
We’re at an inflection point. All of us need to think differently We need to take responsibility for coming up with fresh thoughts for making our economy more vital.
“It’s individual initiative we have to find ways to unleash.”
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Richard Silberman in
Another person for a smarter planet
Igor Jurisica, Ph.D, uses the power of World Community Grid to conduct his cancer research.
When Igor Jurisica started doing cancer research 11 years ago, he worked with about a dozen colleagues using a handful of scientific workstations in a small lab in Toronto, Canada.
How times have changed.
Today, Jurisica, a senior scientist at Princess Margaret Hospital, Ontario Cancer Institute, conducts his research with the help of nearly 300,000 people spread across 100 countries running his calculations on over 900,000 devices. Continue Reading »
Medical decision making can be extremely challenging. Physicians are counted on to make the correct diagnosis and choose the proper treatment for each patient. If they’re wrong, the patient suffers. If they’re terribly wrong, the outcome can be even worse.
So why not give doctors some computing intelligence to help improve their results?
That’s one of the challenges that that inspired scientists at IBM Research – Haifa to help transform healthcare globally. In fact, the Haifa lab is the lead location for healthcare-related work among IBM’s 9 laboratories worldwide–and making the most of medical information is one of its key focuses. “The important thing to realize is that data is king in healthcare. We can transform decision making, and we can use genetic insight to make personalized medicine possible,” says Haim Nelken, manager for integration technologies at IBM Research – Haifa.
It’s no surprise that the topic for the colloquium being conducted there today is The Future of Healthcare. The colloquium is part of an IBM centennial program designed to convene thought leaders – including leading scientists, academics, leaders of industries, public policy makers and IBM clients — for a series of talks and panel discussions on transformational technologies and their potential impact on the world.
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Steve Hamm in
- Analytics
- business analytics
- Education
- Government Services
- new intelligence
- optimization
- Smart Grids
- Smarter Buildings
- Smarter Cities
- Smarter Energy
- Smarter Food
- Smarter Healthcare
- Smarter Industries
- Smarter Planet
- Smarter Systems
- Smarter Transportation
- Smarter Utilities
- Smarter Water
- Smarter Water Management
- sustainability
Rio De Janeiro is a bustling metropolis in a booming country–and, increasingly, an example of how government and business leaders can cooperate to make cities work better. Join the live blog today for a second day of coverage of speeches, panels and hallway discussions.
Update:
Here’s Ginni Rometty, IBM’s senior vice president for Sales, Marketing and Strategy (and IBM’s next CEO) talking about how to build a smarter city.
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Steve Hamm in
IBM, MIT Sloan School of Management and Harvard Business School today are sponsoring a symposium at the the two universities. The morning topic: How advances in information technology can help improve productivity, and improve incomes and create jobs for the 99%. It’s being followed this afternoon by a mock Jeopardy! match between Watson, IBM’s very smart computer, and teams from MIT and HBS.
Update:
Teams of three students from MIT/Sloan and HBS take on IBM’s Watson. (This is only the second contest matching Watson against collegians. In the previous contest, Watson beat teams from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Pitt came in second, much to the chagrin of rival CMU!)
Harvard wins the first question, with “What is Belize?” Answering: countries in central America, ending with “e”
But then Watson takes over, running the category.
The machine picks “Who’s Your Daddy Company?” as the next category, eliciting a huge hook of laughter from the audience.
They finished the Jeopardy! round, with Watson, $8600; Harvard, $5200 ; and MIT, $-200 .
(I got disconnected from HBS’s Wi-Fi at a crucial moment, destroying the coverage of the second round. Grrrrr)
Final Jeopardy!
Clue: Finding the spot for this memorial caused its creator to say “Americans will march across that skyline.”
The question: Mt. Rushmore.
Harvard and Watson answer correctly. MIT does not.
Final score: Watson, $53,601; Harvard, $42,399; MIT, $100.
!!!!! Continue Reading »
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Richard Silberman in
Another person for a smarter planet
Ashifi Gogo, Sproxil CEO
For Ashifi Gogo, commercial success and social benefit are inextricably linked. In launching his cell phone-based drug authentication service, Sproxil, in emerging markets, Gogo saw great opportunity to combat a major problem and make a real difference. He also saw a great business opportunity.
“I had long been upset by the lack of global start-ups with solutions that make an impact in developing nations,” Gogo said. “With our technology, we had an opportunity to operate in emerging markets and solve a critical social problem while doing well commercially. For me, the two sides have always been self-combined.” Continue Reading »
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By Robert Atkinson
President
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
Robert Atkinson, president of the non-partisan public policy think-tank ITIF, today moderated a panel of experts on emerging technologies in the fields of health care, transportation and energy at IBM’s Frontiers of IT Capitol Hill briefing.
Here’s the Washington Post’s Post Tech blog curtain-raiser on the event.
Recently considerable attention has been drawn to the emergence of “Big Data”—large scale data sets that businesses are using to unlock new value using today’s computing and communications power. As a McKinsey Global Institute study recently showed, Big Data offers a wide range of commercial opportunities in virtually every sector of the economy for the United States. To take one example, the authors estimate that better use of big data in health care could generate an additional $300 billion in long-term value, with approximately two-thirds of that coming from a direct reduction in national health care expenditures.
The use of Big Data should not be confined to just the private sector; data offers incredible new opportunities to the public sector as well. Policymakers have the opportunity to use Big Data to improve government in areas such as public safety, public health, public utilities and public transportation. ITIF has discussed many of these opportunities before.
Consider the following:
- Electric power utilities can use data analytics and smart meters to better manage resources and avoid blackouts,
- Food inspectors can use data to better track meat and produce safety from farm to fork ,
- Public health officials can use health data to detect infectious disease outbreaks,
- Regulators can track pharmaceutical and medical device safety and effectiveness through better data analytics,
- Police departments can use data analytics to target crime hotspots and prevent crime waves,
- Public utilities can use sensors to collect data on water and sewer usage to detect leaks and reduce water consumption,
- First responders can use sensors, GPS, cameras and better communication systems to let police and fire fighters better protect citizens when responding to emergencies, and
- State departments of transportation can use data to reduce traffic, more efficiently deploy resources, and implement congestion pricing systems
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By Yong Suh, MBA, MSc
It has been a decade since the excesses of the tech bubble began to unwind, and a shadow of doubt was cast over the technophile’s vision of a new world in which people would buy books without thumbing through the pages, order groceries for home delivery, make friends at the click of a mouse, and gain instant access to the latest movies and music without getting off the couch.
Many innovative companies that had first sold us this vision are no longer around but have left in their wake a wave of strong successors that have turned what were once novelties into an essential part of our daily lives. Amazon, Apple, and Netflix are among a large stable of companies that have vindicated the vision of the early technophiles and have reinvented markets once dominated by brands such as Borders, Tower Records, and Blockbuster. Although the extent of its reach has been variable across industries, the explosive growth of information technology (IT) has touched every sector of the economy. Low touch industries with low barriers to entry, such as consumer retail, have been forever changed by IT, while high touch industries with high barriers to entry, such as healthcare, have largely escaped its grasp.
The current regulatory and reimbursement structure, privacy concerns, technical challenges, cost, workflow disruption, and the medical community’s reluctance to embrace technology without convincing evidence of its benefits are just some of the factors that have slowed the adoption of health IT. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 2009, only 6.9% of office-based physicians in the US had fully functional electronic medical record systems.
