IBM and the University of California San Diego have announced a multi-year project to enhance quality of life and independence for aging populations through the new Artificial Intelligence for Healthy Living Center (AIHL), located on the campus of UC San Diego. The groundbreaking center will bring together the technology, artificial intelligence and life sciences knowledge of IBM and UC San Diego to promote critical research and applications in two thematic areas: Healthy Aging and the Human Microbiome.

The Weather Company, an IBM Business, and PRISA Noticias, one of the world’s leading Spanish-language media groups and owner of EL PAÍS newspaper, announced today a collaboration to combine the most accurate forecasts with one of the Spanish-speaking world’s largest media groups. The Weather Company will provide in-depth weather data and forecasts, as well as tailored content across PRISA properties. In turn, PRISA Noticias will provide locally relevant articles, photos and video content within the Spanish versions of The Weather Channel app and website (weather.com). The collaboration will also enable local marketers to access advanced data-driven advertising solutions from IBM Watson Advertising (formerly The Weather Company’s ad sales business) across both companies’ properties.

IBM Security today announced it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. as a Leader for the sixth consecutive year in the Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Mobility Management Suites1 for its ability to execute and completeness of vision.

IBM today announced that it will help deliver a tailored fan experience through the IBM Cloud at Atlanta’s new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, scheduled to open later this month.

Earlier this week I predicted the demise of conventional IT caused by the wide adoption of SD-WAN and SASE, accelerated by the emergency demands of everyone working from home. Now that Congress has passed a $2.2 trillion COVID-19 bail-out, let’s throw-in the implications of that legislation to see what effect it is all likely to have on what used to be IT. The short version is to expect an even bigger bloodbath as IT employees at all levels are let go forever. Please understand that some version of this bloodbath was going to happen anyway. What matters right now is how we respond to it. While my previous column was generally about turning lower-level IT nerds into Uber drivers, this one goes a little further […]






Digital Branding
Web Design
Marketing

My last column was about crisis management lessons I learned back in 1979 while investigating the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island (TMI). Let’s just say that FEMA wasn’t ready for a nuclear meltdown. Today we turn to the other federal agency I investigated at that same time — the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). While FEMA was simply unprepared and incompetent, the NRC was unprepared and lied about it. Like FEMA, the NRC had recently undergone a rebranding from its previous identity as the Atomic Energy Commission — a schizoid agency that had been charged with both regulating nuclear power and promoting it. It’s difficult to be the major booster of technology while at the same […]






Digital Branding
Web Design
Marketing

My first job out of college was teaching biology, chemistry, physics, and vocational agriculture at Triway High School in rural Wooster, Ohio. I lasted for six weeks. The school environment was such a downer, from the smoke-filled teachers’ lounge to my young co-workers who were teaching mainly, it seemed to me, to avoid service in Vietnam. So when a reporting job became available, I jumped on it, leaving Ohio forever. Years later I returned to teaching, this time at Stanford University, where I worked for six years. Now, 37 years after Stanford, I’m teaching my kids at home thanks to COVID-19. You may be teaching your kids, too. This column is my attempt to make your job easier. It’s not that I’m God’s gift to […]






Digital Branding
Web Design
Marketing

IBM and Box today announced a global partnership that will combine the best-in-class technologies and resources of both companies to transform work in the cloud. Together, the companies plan to integrate their existing products and services and develop new, innovative solutions targeted across industries and professions ranging from medical teams working on complex cases to individuals negotiating consumer loans by mobile phone to engineers and researchers identifying patterns in patents, reports and academic journals.

The Weather Company, an IBM Business announced today that The Weather Channel has launched a cognitive weather bot for Facebook Messenger – powered by IBM Watson. Around the world, Messenger is used to stay in touch with friends and family. Now with The Weather Channel bot, it offers a way to view and share personalized weather-related news content, current conditions, forecasts, severe weather notifications, and other relevant weather information.

Millions of consumers depend on The Weather Channel and weather.com for their daily forecasts, breaking weather news, and the latest in health and travel. And, on August 21, they will be able to experience a solar eclipse like never before. The Weather Channel digital properties and Twitter have teamed up for a live stream of this once-in-a lifetime celestial event, which will allow consumers to chase the total solar eclipse in real time as it moves from coast-to-coast.

MAP Health Management and IBM Watson Health today announced a partnership that aims to address the pervasive problem of relapse among Americans suffering from Substance Use Disorder, a chronic disease. MAP will integrate Watson cognitive technologies into the MAP Recovery Network Platform to enhance the platform’s existing capabilities around patient risk models. In doing so, it is anticipated that behavioral health and substance abuse treatment providers that use the MAP platform will be better able to predict and prevent incidence of relapse nationwide.

The Weather Company, an IBM Business and Rogers Media announced today an agreement to provide weather information and content customized specifically for the Canadian market. With this agreement, The Weather Company will provide in-depth weather data and forecasts, as well as curated content, across Rogers Media properties. In turn, Rogers Media will provide locally relevant articles, photos and video content across the Canadian versions of The Weather Channel app and website (weather.com) to provide residents with the most pertinent information possible. The Weather Company and Rogers Media will also align to enhance advertising across both companies’ properties, with Rogers leveraging its ad sales capabilities to monetize The Weather Channel properties in Canada.

IBM announced today that Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) has integrated IBM Watson Analytics to help create new services and programs based on data-driven insights to improve students’ academic achievement and development.

IBM today announced that Joanne Wright, Vice President, IBM Watson Supply Chain and Jeanette Barlow, Vice President of Offering Management and Strategy for IBM Watson Supply Chain will be participating in the “Industry Value Chain Exchange Series,” part of the Gartner Supply Chain Management Executive Conference. The conference takes place from May 23-25 in Phoenix, Arizona.

1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: FLWS) Gifts When you Need, an online gift concierge for the leading provider of floral and gourmet gifts, may help shoppers uncover the perfect gift for Moms this year. Data from thousands of customers using GWYN powered by IBM Watson (NYSE: IBM) gives insight on hot gifts picks for Mother’s Day.

Desperate to see a show? Bring a sign and come alone.

I was skeptical of an email asking for a lung cancer link

A 3D printer is a desktop fabrication machine. I can make almost anything, and it is crazy.

why am I helping to pay so much for the U.S. Military? I don't own anything.

3D printers can be loud and hot, but they don't actually use a ton of electricity.

Discovering buried treasure is every fourth-grader's dream afternoon.

If your timing is just exactly right, you can experience a Disneyland ghost town

Sewing a new, softer cushion for a structural flower chair

3D printing is a slow process. A hot nozzle heats up and squirts molten hot plastic in a carefully determined pattern to form a three dimentional object. It's like using a hot glue gun to squirt out an entire sculpture. It takes time.

IBM today announced it is teaming up with Toronto-based FinTech company Dream Payments to bring new revenue generating mobile payment offerings to financial institutions and merchants in the United States via the IBM Cloud.

[Image: Diamond nanowires produced by physicist William Gilpin, used only for the purpose of illustration.] As part of some early prep, just putting notes together for a workshop I’ll be leading in Moscow later this summer, I thought I’d link back to this 2014 post by Paul Gilster on Centauri Dreams about “SETI at the … Continue reading "Synthetic at Every Scale"

[Image: Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer by Caspar David Friedrich (c. 1818).] It would be interesting to look at locations of the American popular imagination, as seen in movies and TV, mapped against regional tax breaks for the film industry. There was a brief span of time, for example, when rural Pennsylvania stood in for … Continue reading "Tax Incentives and the Human Imagination"

[Image: An example of gravitational lens effects, via Wikipedia.] Over at WIRED, Daniel Oberhaus, author of the recent book Extraterrestrial Languages, takes a look at some proposals from NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concept (NIAC) program. “Among this year’s NIAC grants,” Oberhaus writes, “are proposals to turn a lunar crater into a giant radio dish, to develop … Continue reading "Gravitational Lensing, Interstellar Cinematography, and the Future of Magical Warfare in Space"

[Image: An otherwise unrelated photo of fire-fighting foam, via Wikipedia.] There are at least two classes of materials that have always interested me: synthetic materials designed to be so resistant and indestructible that they verge on a kind of supernatural longevity, and engineered biomaterials, such as enzymes or microbes, designed to consume exactly these sorts … Continue reading "Fables of the Permanent and Insatiable"

[Image: The “so-called Tower of Babel,” photographed in 1932; courtesy Library of Congress.] I posted these on social media the other day, but I thought I’d include them here simply because of how much I love the casually jaw-dropping caption used for these over at the Library of Congress. This eerie pile of bricks looming … Continue reading "The “So-called Tower of Babel”"

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IBM Security today released a global study examining consumer perspectives around digital identity and authentication, which found that people now prioritize security over convenience when logging into applications and devices. Generational differences also emerged showing that younger adults are putting less care into traditional password hygiene, yet are more likely to use biometrics, multifactor authentication and password managers to improve their personal security.

NASCAR and The Weather Company, an IBM Busines, announced today a multi-year agreement that will optimize the weather-related decision process for NASCAR as it incorporates hyper-local weather data and forecasts into their races to improve race-day operations and fan engagement. As part of the agreement, The Weather Company, via The Weather Channel brand, becomes the Official Weather Partner of NASCAR.

While marketing and sales professionals increasingly find themselves drowning in data, a new IBM study finds that nearly two thirds—64 percent--of surveyed CMOs and sales leaders believe their industries will be ready to adopt cognitive technologies in the next three years. However despite this stated readiness, the study finds that only 24 percent of those surveyed believe they have strategy in place to implement these technologies today.

As the new school year begins, elementary school teachers across the United States are now able to access a new, free online tool designed to provide elementary school teachers with targeted math resources for their kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms.

IBM today announced sweeping advances in its all-flash storage solutions and software to significantly drive down the costs of data and extend its solutions for hybrid and private cloud environments.

IBM today announced a research collaboratory in Singapore, where researchers from IBM intend to collaborate with scientists and engineers from public agencies in Singapore to improve the quality of its urban services. The focus of this research effort will be to use sensor networks to more effectively model, predict and manage the use of natural and physical infrastructure resources – water, transport and energy.  

IBM, which is celebrating its centennial this Thursday, announced that its Watson computer system was honored this evening as the Person Of The Year at the 15th Annual Webby Awards gala in New York City. Earlier this year, Watson captured the international spotlight when it competed on the renowned quiz show Jeopardy! and defeated the show's two most successful and celebrated contestants, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

IBM today introduced a new supercomputer powered by one of the world’s fastest microprocessors and cooled by an innovative water system.

IBM has successfully prototyped a new software architecture for automating data management, potentially making it easier for researchers to collect usable information from mega-scale data collection projects like the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) global telescope which aims to address unanswered questions about our universe.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that the Victoria University of Wellington, on behalf of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) Consortium, has selected IBM systems technology to help scientists probe the origins of the universe.

(NYSE: IBM) will strengthen Australia and New Zealand’s chances of co-hosting the world’s biggest radio telescope project (SKA), one of the largest scientific projects ever undertaken. The IBM SUR Award of IBM high performance Graphical Processor Unit (GPU) based computer hardware, management software and implementation services, will enable Victoria University to support the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) project, a low frequency SKA pathfinder project hosted in Australia in collaboration with Curtin University, MIT, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Raman Research Institute.

Unitec today announced that the number of people employed in two Delivery Centres at its Mount Albert campus now exceeds 500, and continue to drive benefits for Unitec students and the Auckland economy.

BNZ, one of the country’s leading banks announces it has selected IBM to deliver cross-channel fraud prevention to its customers. The multi-million dollar deal will support BNZ’s aim to provide its customers the ability to bank securely while delivering a positive customer experience.

IBM announced today it is making up to €2.2 billion ($3 billion) available to finance IT initiatives in key economic stimulus projects in Europe and Asia-Pacific through IBM Global Financing, IBM’s lending and leasing business segment. Today’s announcement follows the availability of up to €1.5 billion ($2 billion) announced by IBM on April 30 to help jump start US economic stimulus programs.

red hat, open source, bank of new zealand, enterprise linux 5, system z, National Australia Bank Group, data center

Unitec Institute of Technology, one of New Zealand’s largest tertiary institutions, is consolidating its core IT infrastructure onto IBM Cloud to facilitate a world class learning experience for its students.

IBM Poland and WINUEL SA (subsidiary of Sygnity Group), today announced the first Polish Smart Metering software package to enable intelligent electricity use in more than 15 million households in Poland. The solution was developed jointly with the IBM Software Laboratory in Krakow.

Today IBM formally unveiled the fifth annual "Next Five in Five" – a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years: • You'll beam up your friends in 3-D • Batteries will breathe air to power our devices • You won’t need to be a scientist to save the planet • Your commute will be personalized • Computers will help energize your city