IBM and Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is the area of science and innovation concerned with material of less than 100 nanometers. Specifically, it involves the control and manipulation of individual atoms and molecules. On this day in 1979, IBM created the smallest electronic circuit elements ever reported. The nano devices had a thickness of only 100 by 200 atomic diameters – that’s smaller than the fibers of a human nerve. This breakthrough was one of the first steps in the still-ongoing development of nanotechnology. Today, IBM scientists continue to explore and improve the design of semiconductors and computer chips, making them smaller, smarter and more energy efficient. It’s another way IBM is investing in practical technology development for the future.

Learn more about nanotechnology ->

6 years ago

IBM 3525 Card Punch: Innovating an Innovation

IBM was one of the first companies to begin manufacturing punched cards. For almost four decades, punched cards were the major medium for storing, sorting and reporting data processed first through punched card equipment and—later—computers. Colloquially known as “IBM cards,” the punched cards were so embedded in business operations that by the 1950s, they represented over 20% of IBM’s revenue. On this day in 1971, IBM announced a new version of the IBM 3525 Card Punch replacing incandescent lamps with LEDs—a new technology at the time—to read punched cards. While the punched card may now be a thing of the past, LEDs are as relevant as ever, with new applications being actively developed. In retrospect, with a bit of serendipity, one great innovation passed the baton to another.

Learn more about the long history of the punched card ->

6 years ago

Putting Twiga Foods on the Blockchain

Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Twiga Foods is a business-to-business logistics platform for food stalls and kiosks. Twiga helps farmers distribute bananas, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and more to 2,600 kiosks across Kenya. But they realized that they could help farmers sell more produce if they gave them access to capital, credit and other financial services. Working together with IBM, Twiga Foods developed a machine learning-powered, blockchain-enabled finance lending platform that is designed to manage and track micro-loans to farmers and vendors in Africa to help stimulate the economy and benefit its users. During an eight-week pilot program, Twiga’s service conducted 220 micro-loans (the average size of each loan is about $30, or 3,020 KES), which helped increase order size by 30% and profits for each retailer, on average, by about 6%. IBM is excited to help promote social good and use technology to bring positive change to these regional markets.

Learn more about Twiga Foods and its blockchain-powered micro-loan service ->

6 years ago

Engineering the Sydney Opera House Arches

Today in 1973, the iconic Sydney Opera House was completed. One of the unsung heroes behind this marvel of human engineering was a Frenchman named Joe Bertony. Bertony designed the truss that supports the famous arches. Because each arch was differently curved, the mathematical equations required were extremely complex. So complex, in fact, that Bertony conducted over 30,000 separate equations to figure out how much stress could be applied to the arch structure. Because of this complexity – and because the margin of error could be no more than half an inch – a computer was required to double-check each of his brilliant equations. At the time, the only computer powerful enough was the IBM 7090, which was selected for the task. IBM is proud to have supported the construction of this amazing building and to continue supporting human ingenuity to create amazing things.

Learn more about the story of building the Sydney Opera House ->

6 years ago

Take us home, Olli. 

The next generation of self-driving cars is one you can talk to. Local Motors, creators of the world’s first 3D-printed cars, just launched Olli, the first talking shuttle bus to use cloud-based IBM Watson IoT for Automotive as a brain.

A combination of four Watson APIs (Speech-to-Text, Natural Language Classifier, Entity Extraction and Text-to-Speech) gives Olli the ability to recognize and react to things like “let’s go downtown” or “what’s good to eat around here?” as you and up to 11 other people go from point A to B.

If you’re looking to catch a ride with Olli, you can find it making the rounds in Washington, D.C. Next stops: Miami and Las Vegas.

Honk to learn more about Olli and Watson →

8 years ago

A Mad Scientist on innovation…and love

From our Reddit AMA with John Cohn →

10 years ago

Computer science lab turned art studio? Connectivity of a Cognitive Computer Based on the Macaque Brain, an illustration by IBM Research, earns first place in Wired’s Best Science and Engineering Visualizations of 2012.

(Thanks WIRED!)

11 years ago