While countless companies proclaim their technologies, products, services — and themselves — ‘innovative,’ the inherent definition of innovation has changed today from what it was in the past. It’s no longer individuals toiling in a laboratory, coming up with some great invention. It’s not an individual. It’s individuals. It’s multidisciplinary. It’s global. It’s collaborative.
People are looking for value that arises from a creation and not just at technology for its sake. Innovation today is more about services, process, business models or cultural innovation than just product innovation. It begins at the intersection of invention and business insight — and is made valid only when it results in significant business and societal value.
IBM has over 3,000 researchers worldwide who work in close collaboration across eight research Labs. For the fifteenth consecutive year in a row, IBM innovators have filed the largest number of patents in the US Patent Office. But what makes us proud is the value we deliver to clients, society and to the world. Our culture of innovation allows cross-pollination of ideas from a wide array of scientific disciplines and understanding of end-users of technology as true collaborators. InnovationJam is one such initiative, it is the most tangible demonstration of our belief in the power of “collaborative innovation.”
‘Next Five in Five’ from IBM is a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play, over the next five years. The list is based on market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s Labs that could make these innovations possible.
Here goes:
It will be easy for you to be green and save money doing it: A range of ‘smart energy’ technologies will make it easier for you to manage your personal ‘carbon footprint’. As data begins to run through our electrical wires, dishwashers, air-conditioners, house lights, and more, will be connected directly to a ‘smart’ electric grid, making it possible to turn them on and off using your cell-phone or any Web browser. In addition to alerting you about leaving appliances switched on when they could be switched off to conserve energy, technology will also provide you with up-to-date reports of electrical usage, so you can monitor how much you are spending and how much energy you are putting out, just like you can track your cell-phone minute usage today.
Intelligent energy grids will also enable utilities to provide you with the option to use green energy sources, such as solar and wind, to fuel your home, and innovations in solar and wind technology will bring cost-efficient options to a utility near you.
The way you drive will be completely different: In the next five years, a coming wave of connectivity between cars and the road is going to change the way you drive, help keep you safe, and even keep you out of traffic jams.
Technology is poised to keep traffic moving, cut pollution, curb accidents, and make it easier for you to get from point A to B, without the stress. The cities you live in will find a cure for congestion using intelligent traffic systems that can make real-time adjustments to traffic lights and divert traffic to alternate routes with ease.
Your car will have driver-assist technologies that will make it possible for automobiles to communicate with each other and with sensors along the road — allowing them to behave as if they have ‘reflexes’ so they can take preventive actions under dangerous conditions. Your car will automatically tell you where traffic is jammed up and find you an alternative route to take.
You are what you eat, so you will know what you eat: We’ve all heard the saying ‘you are what you eat’, but with foods being sourced across international borders, the need to ‘know exactly what you eat’ has never been so important. In the next five years, new technology systems will enable you to know the exact source and make-up of the products you buy and consume.
Advancements in computer software and wireless radio sensor technologies will give you access to much more detailed information about the food you are buying and eating. You will know everything from the climate and soil the food was grown in, to the pesticides and pollution it was exposed to, to the energy consumed to create the product, to the temperature and air quality of the shipping containers it travelled through on the way to your dinner table. Advanced sensor and tracing systems will tell you what you eat, before you eat it.
Your cell-phone will be your wallet, your ticket broker, your concierge, your bank, your shopping buddy, and more: In the next five years, your mobile phone will be a trusted guide to shopping, banking, touring a new city, and more.
New technology will allow you to snap a picture of someone wearing an outfit you want and will automatically search the Web to find the designer and the nearest shops that carry that outfit. You can then see what that outfit would look like on your personal avatar — a 3D representation of you — right on your phone, and ask your friends, in different locations, to check it out online and give their opinion.
Your phone will also guide you through visiting a city. When you turn on your phone in a city you are visiting, it automatically provides you with local entertainment options, activities, and dining options that match your preferences, and then make reservations and purchases tickets for you — like a personal concierge.
Doctors will get enhanced “super-senses” to better diagnose and treat you: In the next five years, your doctor will be able to see, hear and understand your medical records in entirely new ways. In effect, doctors will gain superpowers — technologies will allow them to gain x-ray-like vision to view medical images; super sensitive hearing to find the tiniest audio clue in your heart beat; and ways to organise information in the same way they treat a patient.
An avatar — a 3D representation of your body — will allow doctors to visualise your medical records and click with the computer mouse on a particular part of the avatar, to trigger a search of your medical records and retrieve information relevant to that part of your body, instead of leafing through pages of notes.
The computer will automatically compare those visual and audio clues to thousands or hundreds of thousands of other patient records, and be able to be much more precise in diagnosing and also treating you, based on people with similar issues and make-up.
The author is Director, IBM India Research Laboratory.
People are looking for value that arises from a creation and not just at technology for its sake. Innovation today is more about services, process, business models or cultural innovation than just product innovation. It begins at the intersection of invention and business insight — and is made valid only when it results in significant business and societal value.
IBM has over 3,000 researchers worldwide who work in close collaboration across eight research Labs. For the fifteenth consecutive year in a row, IBM innovators have filed the largest number of patents in the US Patent Office. But what makes us proud is the value we deliver to clients, society and to the world. Our culture of innovation allows cross-pollination of ideas from a wide array of scientific disciplines and understanding of end-users of technology as true collaborators. InnovationJam is one such initiative, it is the most tangible demonstration of our belief in the power of “collaborative innovation.”
‘Next Five in Five’ from IBM is a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play, over the next five years. The list is based on market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s Labs that could make these innovations possible.
Here goes:
It will be easy for you to be green and save money doing it: A range of ‘smart energy’ technologies will make it easier for you to manage your personal ‘carbon footprint’. As data begins to run through our electrical wires, dishwashers, air-conditioners, house lights, and more, will be connected directly to a ‘smart’ electric grid, making it possible to turn them on and off using your cell-phone or any Web browser. In addition to alerting you about leaving appliances switched on when they could be switched off to conserve energy, technology will also provide you with up-to-date reports of electrical usage, so you can monitor how much you are spending and how much energy you are putting out, just like you can track your cell-phone minute usage today.
Intelligent energy grids will also enable utilities to provide you with the option to use green energy sources, such as solar and wind, to fuel your home, and innovations in solar and wind technology will bring cost-efficient options to a utility near you.
The way you drive will be completely different: In the next five years, a coming wave of connectivity between cars and the road is going to change the way you drive, help keep you safe, and even keep you out of traffic jams.
Technology is poised to keep traffic moving, cut pollution, curb accidents, and make it easier for you to get from point A to B, without the stress. The cities you live in will find a cure for congestion using intelligent traffic systems that can make real-time adjustments to traffic lights and divert traffic to alternate routes with ease.
Your car will have driver-assist technologies that will make it possible for automobiles to communicate with each other and with sensors along the road — allowing them to behave as if they have ‘reflexes’ so they can take preventive actions under dangerous conditions. Your car will automatically tell you where traffic is jammed up and find you an alternative route to take.
You are what you eat, so you will know what you eat: We’ve all heard the saying ‘you are what you eat’, but with foods being sourced across international borders, the need to ‘know exactly what you eat’ has never been so important. In the next five years, new technology systems will enable you to know the exact source and make-up of the products you buy and consume.
Advancements in computer software and wireless radio sensor technologies will give you access to much more detailed information about the food you are buying and eating. You will know everything from the climate and soil the food was grown in, to the pesticides and pollution it was exposed to, to the energy consumed to create the product, to the temperature and air quality of the shipping containers it travelled through on the way to your dinner table. Advanced sensor and tracing systems will tell you what you eat, before you eat it.
Your cell-phone will be your wallet, your ticket broker, your concierge, your bank, your shopping buddy, and more: In the next five years, your mobile phone will be a trusted guide to shopping, banking, touring a new city, and more.
New technology will allow you to snap a picture of someone wearing an outfit you want and will automatically search the Web to find the designer and the nearest shops that carry that outfit. You can then see what that outfit would look like on your personal avatar — a 3D representation of you — right on your phone, and ask your friends, in different locations, to check it out online and give their opinion.
Your phone will also guide you through visiting a city. When you turn on your phone in a city you are visiting, it automatically provides you with local entertainment options, activities, and dining options that match your preferences, and then make reservations and purchases tickets for you — like a personal concierge.
Doctors will get enhanced “super-senses” to better diagnose and treat you: In the next five years, your doctor will be able to see, hear and understand your medical records in entirely new ways. In effect, doctors will gain superpowers — technologies will allow them to gain x-ray-like vision to view medical images; super sensitive hearing to find the tiniest audio clue in your heart beat; and ways to organise information in the same way they treat a patient.
An avatar — a 3D representation of your body — will allow doctors to visualise your medical records and click with the computer mouse on a particular part of the avatar, to trigger a search of your medical records and retrieve information relevant to that part of your body, instead of leafing through pages of notes.
The computer will automatically compare those visual and audio clues to thousands or hundreds of thousands of other patient records, and be able to be much more precise in diagnosing and also treating you, based on people with similar issues and make-up.
The author is Director, IBM India Research Laboratory.
Ref : THE HINDU, Monday, Aug 04, 2008
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