A Smarter Planet

Model Realistically Simulates Plate TectonicsETH Zurich...

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:13:23 -0500

Model Realistically Simulates Plate Tectonics

ETH Zurich scientists have for the first time succeeded in realistically simulating how an oceanic plate sinks of its own accord under an adjacent plate. At the same time they showed why only one of the plates rather than both subducts into the Earth’s mantle, and how this process affects the dynamics of the Earth’s interior.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-Model-Realistically-Simulates-Plate-Tectonics-022412.aspx

via laboratoryequipment:

Mobile Health: AgaMatrix iPhone glucose monitor | MedTech This...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 22:46:00 -0500

Mobile Health: AgaMatrix iPhone glucose monitor | MedTech

This is an awesome device that turns the iPhone into your own personal blood glucose meter. Well…that’s boring right? My glucose meter does that right now. Not quite. With iPhone being directly linked to current wireless technology the app for iBGStar automatically logs data and sends it to the office of your health care professional so that data is available for review is a precise format. This way your healthcare professional can analyse the data as it comes in and make decisions to optimize the patient’s dosage and other medical management without the patient coming to the office.

What is… Watson? Just a year ago, a supercomputer called...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:37:00 -0500

What is… Watson?

Just a year ago, a supercomputer called Watson changed forever how we imagine machine intelligence.

(via Sean Kelly Studio)

Your Life as Data: The Rise of Personal Annual Reports |...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:44:13 -0500

Your Life as Data: The Rise of Personal Annual Reports | Mashable

Every time he drinks a cup of coffee, Dan Meyer makes a note on his phone. He does the same every time he opens a beer, turns on his TV or travels away from home. At the end of each month, he spends about three hours transferring these meticulously gathered notes into an excel spreadsheet. Meyer isn’t obsessive compulsive, he just likes data. Like an increasing number of data geeks, he uses his personal life as a project — compiling small events into a sometimes elaborate, graphic annual report each January.

"In order to solve contemporary business problems, a big data strategy is needed much more than any..."

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:18:05 -0500

“In order to solve contemporary business problems, a big data strategy is needed much more than any one product. As I explained in my prior article, “Curing the Big Data Storage Fetish,” there is a growing understanding among enterprises that solving the big data conundrum can’t just be about acquiring more data warehousing technology. To fully exploit the opportunity presented by big data, a value chain must be created that helps address the challenges of acquiring data, evaluating its value, distilling it, building models both manually and automatically, analyzing the data, creating applications, and changing business processes based on what is discovered. Organizations have to figure out a way to increase analytical capacity, not just raw storage capacity.”

- What is a Data Scientist? - Forbes (via smartercomputing)

10 Inspiring Quotes From Our Favorite TEDTalks

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:02:22 -0500

10 Inspiring Quotes From Our Favorite TEDTalks

Big data and social analytics

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:55:02 -0500

Commenting on one of the interesting things [that happens] when businesses try to install a new social platform within the enterprise, Marie Wallace made an interesting comparison between these ventures and feeding a hungry child. “You’re feeding it for 18 to 24 months before it learns to speak,” Wallace said, “What we’re trying to do is get the child to grow up faster.”

via ibmsocialbiz:

Source: ZDNet

Nike’s Sparq Shines a Light on Visual Training | Playbook...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:46:05 -0500

Nike’s Sparq Shines a Light on Visual Training | Playbook | Wired.com

You wouldn’t think that old saw, “practice makes perfect” would apply to, say, tracking a baseball as it comes toward you at 95 mph. Nike says it does, and wants to prove it.

The company’s funky new Sparq Vapor Strobe eyewear works with the equally geeky Sparq Sensory Station to analyze and improve 10 vital visual and sensory skills. The eyewear’s lens work a bit like a strobe light — hence the name — by alternating between clear and obstructed fields of vision to improve your ability to target an oncoming object. Think of it as watching that baseball through a venetian blind you’re opening and closing dozens of times a minute.

It sounds crazy, but evidence suggests it works. The system has been used in particular by NFL players like St. Louis Rams running back Steven Jackson and Green Bay Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings. But you don’t have to be catching long bombs to benefit from the technology. Nike swears it can help any athlete in any sport where keeping your eye on the ball is critical.

“The clearer you see, the better the reaction, the better the depth perception,” says Dr. Alan Reichow, Nike’s vision and science research director, who’s been studying visual and sensory performance in sports since the late 1970s.

Watson’s New Job: IBM Salesman - Technology...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:52:06 -0500

Watson’s New Job: IBM Salesman - Technology Review

IBM’s Watson supercomputer reached a milestone in artificial intelligence last February when it beat two Jeopardy! champions. Millions watched, and while some experts dismissed it as a publicity stunt, IBM said Watson would soon be helping doctors diagnose illness, and hinted at talks with gadget companies about Watson helping consumers with questions.

As IBM prepares to celebrate the first anniversary of the televised contest on February 16, though, it is not yet offering the question-answering system for sale. Although limited trials using Watson technology are underway in health and financial services businesses, the AI prodigy is having its biggest impact by pulling in new customers for existing business products—as IBM persuades them to organize their data into formats that an AI like Watson can better understand. IBM has created a slogan, “Ready for Watson,” to help sell its products that way.

IBM hasn’t disclosed how much it spent developing Watson, but the lengthy research and development process is believed to have cost in the tens of millions of dollars. To play Jeopardy, the system needed to understand the meaning of the answers posed as clues, and to rapidly apply general knowledge—distilled from the Internet and other sources—to identify possible answers. That required novel software and an expensive supercomputer.

“Customers are coming to us and saying ‘I’d like a Watson,’ ” says Stephen Gold, IBM’s director of worldwide marketing for Watson. Eventually, that might be possible, but first they need to have the right data sets for Watson to operate on.

Scientists Print Cheap RFID Tags On Paper | TechWeekEurope...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:28:55 -0500

Scientists Print Cheap RFID Tags On Paper | TechWeekEurope UK

Technology could make RFID tags cheap enough to replace barcodes in the future

A way to print Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips right onto paper has been discovered by a team of scientists from University of Montpellier.

The technique uses a thermal evaporation process to deposit of thin aluminium coil antennas on sheets of paper which can later be used to create packaging or printed material. Researchers claim that this works out to be cheaper than any other method of producing RFID tags, allowing the technology to replace both barcodes and QR codes.

Some Interesting facts about Mobile Phone Owners world wide

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:09:05 -0500

Some Interesting facts about Mobile Phone Owners world wide :

Via visualoop:

Business Analytics - Turning Data Into Insight (by IBM) In an...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:52:42 -0500

Business Analytics - Turning Data Into Insight (by IBM)

In an era of Smarter Analytics, it is imperative that businesses leverage the massive quantities of data available to them. In order to remain competitive, data must be transformed into insight and integrated into business processes.

Connect w/ Simon Thomas at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/simon-thomas/1/228/45

The hot tech gig of 2022: Data scientist - Fortune Tech By the...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:30:00 -0500

The hot tech gig of 2022: Data scientist - Fortune Tech

By the end of the decade 50 billion devices will be emitting information nonstop. Data scientists will help manage it all.

A decade from now the smart techies who decided to become app developers may wish they had taken an applied-mathematics class or two. The coming deluge of data (more on that in a moment) will create demand for a new kind of computer scientist — a gig that’s one part mathematician, one part product-development guru, and one part detective.

D.J. Patil is a pioneer in the field of data science, a new discipline that aims to organize and make sense of all the data generated by machines. It’s a challenge that will grow exponentially over the next decade.

Tech in 2012: Face-offs, failures and fairly big changes at the office

Today there are some 400 million devices connected to the Internet, mostly phones and computers. By 2020 some 50 billion devices, from cars to appliances, will be talking to one another. And companies will need teams of data scientists like Patil to sort through everything from internal inventory metrics to customer tweets. The role is so important that Greylock Partners has hired Patil to serve as a “data scientist in residence” to help its portfolio companies mine their data for patterns or stats that will make them more efficient or smarter than their competitors.

How citizen mapmakers are shaping the stories of their...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:00:05 -0500

How citizen mapmakers are shaping the stories of their cities.

公民地圖改變城市故事。

thisbigcity:

Nine Startups Vie For IBM Global Entrepreneur Honors

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:00:05 -0500

Nine Startups Vie For IBM Global Entrepreneur Honors:

As the world becomes more connected through trillions of sensors, the ability to transform data into insight that can better monitor, manage and predict potential issues and opportunities is critical. Each startup participating at the SmartCamp Global Finals has created software that is designed to analyze large volumes of data. The finalists are:

BitCarrier: BitCarrier’s traffic management solutions analyze real-time traffic information, providing current travel times, estimations on congestion rates and accident alerts (winner, SmartCamp Barcelona).
C-B4 Context Based 4Casting: CB4 has created a context-based system for identifying and analyzing hidden data patterns in large-scale data warehouses. The system is particularly suited to the retail trade and customer relations management (winner, SmartCamp Tel Aviv).
ConnectM: ConnectM’s machine-to-machine technology uses advanced analytics to collect information from disparate systems to provide business intelligence. The solutions are developed specifically for the telecommunications, utilities and transportation industries (winner, SmartCamp Bangalore).
IDXP: IDXP’s consumer behavior solution installs sensors in stores and shopping carts to help retailers understand consumer behavior (winner, SmartCamp Rio de Janeiro).

Localytics: Localytics’ real-time analytics service provides makers of mobile phone and tablet applications with a better understanding of peoples mobile application preferences and tendencies (winner, SmartCamp New York City).
Palmap: Palmap’s mapping solution provides mobile users with instant information for indoor activities such as navigating airports and shopping malls (winner, SmartCamp Shanghai).

Profitero: Profitero helps online retailers maximize profits via competitor analytics (winner, SmartCamp London).
SecureWaters: SecureWaters’ patented technology continuously monitors, detects and identifies toxins in surface water. An early warning alarm system alerts clients to potential issues (winner, SmartCamp Austin).
SkinScan: SkinScan’s mobile application enables users to scan the moles on their bodies to measure skin cancer threat levels. They also offer a cloud infrastructure for medical histories of patients and doctors (winner, SmartCamp Istanbul).