Meet The Fellows
learn more about the class of ’13
GO INSIDE THE INVENTIVE MIND
Follow along as we share the passion and anecdotes of IBMers who helped send people to the moon, hatched trillions of barcodes, launched the computer industry and then even taught one to play Jeopardy! They’re just some of the innovations we’ve been working on to build a smarter planet.
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Innovation culture is spreading.
Are we there yet?, 2012
Another groundbreaking
innovation of the last 20 years
The kids are hungry. Your bladder’s angry. And the line to get through the toll is backed up for miles. According to the GPS, your relaxing day at the beach should have arrived 90 minutes ago.
Enter IBM US Patent No. 8,150,611 and the effort to make family trips and commutes a whole lot easier. By combining both real-time and predictive traffic data, we can better determine how long it takes to get from point A to point B, while navigating past traffic jams. What does this mean for you? For starters, a whole lot less time in the car. Good thing, because the kids have started pulling hair and your wife just put on the greatest soft hits of the 70s.
Avoiding green vehicle blackouts of the future, 2012
Another groundbreaking
innovation of the last 20 years
It’s probably not the best idea to run your toaster, microwave, dishwasher, five halogens and hair-dryer at the same time. Unless you enjoy hanging out with your electrician. Soon, though, we may have something else to stick into the wall—the family car. The Prius, Volt and Leaf all point to an electric-vehicle future. And that brings up a nutty little paradox. With millions of plug-in cars on the road gulping down electrons, won’t we actually need more electricity? And won’t it cost more to run them?
IBM’s been thinking about this for a while, and came up with US Patent No. 8,266,075. It’s a quite clever transaction system that combines energy prices, your car’s current battery level, and your own transport needs. Then it delivers up a schedule of charging times and prices. It’ll mean your little EV can grab some lightning bolts wherever there’s an outlet, without breaking the bank—or the world’s energy grid. Maybe, just maybe, it’s the foundation for the fuel network of the future. Now isn’t that an electrifying thought?
“Find things that annoy you and fix them is exactly my credo.” I once went with my friend to a parking lot and he found that his car was hit by some other car. He was very upset. I told him, “We will make a positive thing from this—an invention that helps to find a car that hit your car in a parking lot.”
So I came up with the idea of having nano codes in every car painting that contain this car identity. When we presented this concept to an invention evaluator at IBM he said that just a day ago someone hit his car and he cannot find that person. He immediately approved our invention :) “Dimitri Kanevsky
Master Inventor, 168 patents in US
