IBM acquires Cognos, a Canadian software company specializing in business
intelligence. The acquisition supports IBM's global Information on Demand
strategy, a two-year-old cross-company initiative that combines IBM's strength in
information integration, content and data management and business consulting
services to unlock the business value of information. The move makes IBM a leading
provider of technology and services for Business Intelligence and Performance
Management, delivering a broad, open standards-based platform to help companies
expand the value of their information, optimize their business processes and
maximize performance across their enterprises.
The Beacon Institute and IBM announce an unique plan to create the first
technology-based monitoring and forecasting network for a major American river and
estuary. The River and Estuary Observatory Network (REON) will allow for
minute-to-minute monitoring of New York's Hudson River via an integrated network
of sensors, robotics and computational technology distributed throughout the
315-mile river. The first of its kind project is made possible in part by IBM's
"Stream Computing" system, a fundamentally new computer architecture that can
examine thousands of information sources to help scientists better understand what
is happening in the world -- as it happens.
The inaugural Green 500 list - which ranks the overall TOP500 list of the world's
fastest computers by energy efficiency the machines that make - shows IBM Blue
Gene supercomputers, the capturing 26 of the top 27 spots. IBM also placed a total
of 232 supercomputers on the Top500 list, the most of any vendor. IBM ® System
Blue Gene®/P Solution, the world's most powerful supercomputer, nearly triples
the performance of its predecessor, Blue Gene/L, while remaining the most
energy-efficient and space-saving computing package ever built. The IBM ® System
Blue Gene®/P Solution scales to operate continuously at speeds exceeding one
"petaflop" -- or one-quadrillion operations per second. The system is 100,000
times more powerful than a home PC and can process more operations in one second
than the combined power of a stack of laptop computers nearly 1.5 miles high. The
Blue Gene/P supercomputer can be configured to reach speeds in excess of three
petaflops, a performance level that many thought unattainable only a few short
years ago.
IBM researcher Shawn Hall inspects a new Blue Gene/P supercomputer. The IBM system
will be capable of up to three thousand trillion calculations per second.
IBM launches the fastest microprocessor ever built and an ultra-powerful new
computer server that leverages the chip’s many breakthroughs in energy
conservation and virtualization technology. The new server is the first ever to
hold all four major benchmark speed records for business and technical
performance. At 4.7 GHz, the dual-core POWER6TMprocessor doubles the speed of the
previous generation POWER5TM while using nearly the same amount of electricity to
run and cool it. The processor bandwidth of the POWER6 chip – 300 gigabytes per
second -- could download the entire iTunes catalog in about 60 seconds.
IBM redirects $1 billion per year across its businesses, mobilizing the
company’s resources to dramatically increase the level of energy efficiency in
IT. Called “Project Big Green,” IBM’s initiative targets corporate data
centers where energy constraints and costs can limit their ability to grow. The
initiative includes a new global “green team” of more than 850 energy
efficiency architects from across IBM. The plan includes new products and services
for IBM and its clients to sharply reduce data center energy consumption,
transforming the world’s business and public technology infrastructures into
"green" data centers. As part of Project Big Green, the company announces an $86
million data center expansion at its Boulder facility. The new data center will
feature IBM’s new energy efficient products and services.
IBM Cool Blue -- Thermal and conventional images of three IBM server racks
demonstrate the capabilities of the water cooling device, IBM's "Cool Blue" Rear
Door Heat Exchanger. The server in the middle gives off virtually no heat,
lowering energy consumption by reducing cooling requirements.
IBM scientists announce that they have measured the distribution of electrical
charges in tubes of carbon that measure less than 2 nanometers in diameter, 50,000
times thinner than a strand of human hair. This scientific advance provides a
detailed understanding of the electrical behavior of carbon nanotubes, a material
that shows promise as a building block for much smaller, faster and lower power
computer chips compared to today's conventional silicon transistors. By
understanding the interaction of electrons and phonons in carbon nanotubes, the
researchers have developed a better way to measure their suitability for potential
mass production as wires and semiconductors inside of future computer chips.
This novel measurement technique relies on the interactions between electrons and
phonons. Phonons are the atomic vibrations that occur inside material, and can
determine the material's thermal and electrical conductivity. Electrons carry and
produce the current. Both are important features of materials that can be used to
carry electrical signals and perform computations. The interaction between
electrons and phonons can release heat and impede electrical flow inside computer
chips. By understanding the interaction of electrons and phonons in carbon
nanotubes, the researchers have developed a better way to measure their
suitability as wires and semiconductors inside of future computer chips.
IBM researchers unveil two major scientific breakthroughs at the atomic scale:
one, a major step in understanding the ability for single atoms to maintain a
specific magnetic direction, making them suitable for future data storage
applications; and the other a novel very robust and stable single-molecule switch
that can be used as a modular building block for molecular computers. In addition,
IBM researchers in collaboration with scientists from the ETH Zurich demonstrate a
new, efficient and precise technique to "print" at the nanoscale. The method,
which allows the scientists to place individual particles precisely where they
want them, could advance the development of nanoscale biosensors, ultra-tiny
lenses that can bend light inside future optical chips, and the fabrication of
nanowires that might be the basis of tomorrow’s computer chips. Although still
far from making their way into products, these breakthroughs will enable
scientists at to continue driving the field of nanotechnology, the exploration of
building structures and devices out of ultra-tiny, atomic-scale components that
are more efficient and cost less than today's methods.
Illustration of the preferred magnetic orientation of an iron atom on a specially
prepared copper surface. The ability of an atom to maintain its magnetic
orientation can help determine that atom's suitability for storing data. As the
atom's magnetic spin points in one direction, it can represent a "1", and in the
other direction a "0", telling scientists that single-atoms may be suitable for
storing the 1s and 0s known as bits, that enable information storage in computing
devices. This represents a potential building block for atomic storage.
IBM introduces Lotus Symphony, a free office productivity software suite that
features three core applications – word processing, spreadsheets and
presentations. The software suite, which supports Windows and Linux desktops, is
downloaded by more than 100,000 registered business and consumer users in its
first week. The download figure is a record for IBM software, surpassing the
previous record held by Lotus Notes, IBM's most widely-used product.
Only four years after the initiation of IBM's On Demand Community, the company's
new community service program, the company surpasses its 100,000th employee
participant, logging in aggregate more than 6 million hours of service. From
working with the visually impaired and physically handicapped, to assisting the
homeless, to helping students in need of mentoring, IBM volunteers are serving in
nearly 100 countries.
The world's most remote inhabited island can now access advanced telemedical care,
thanks to pro-bono services and support from a high-technology team led by IBM and
Beacon Equity Partners. Tristan da Cunha is located more than 1,665 miles west of
Cape Town, South Africa, and is accessible only by a boat trip lasting a week or
more.Until recently, the island’s only physician, had to work from a hospital
without so much as its own telephone, let alone an electronic communications
system. The doctor depended on digital images scanned, printed and faxed to
specialists thousands of miles away, delaying diagnoses by days.With no airstrip
on the island, emergency evacuation or outside medical intervention has been and
remains today virtually impossible. IBM and its partners created “Project
Tristan”, a remote medical solution combining medical equipment, satellite
communications and remotely supported electronic health-record (EHR) technology,
allowing medical experts from anywhere in the world to assist island clinicians in
their daily practices with medical diagnoses and emergency support. Project
Tristan, which is based on open standards and runs on the Linux Operating System,
is expected to greatly enhance the island’s level of medical care and standard
of living.
IBM and the Smithsonian Institution announce the virtual opening of the National
Museum of African American History and Culture, the Smithsonian's 19th and newest
museum. The museum web site, built using social networking technologies known as
Web. 2.0, allows visitors to contribute content, creating a vibrant, collaborative
community of users in anticipation of the opening of a physical museum in 2015.
This online presence marks the first time a major museum has opened its doors on
the Web prior to the construction of its building.
IBM donates to the United States government an innovative speech translation
technology to support better communication in Iraq. The intent of the donation is
to help augment human translators and improve the safety of U.S. and coalition
personnel, citizens and staff of nongovernmental aid organizations (NGOs).
Specifically, IBM provides 1,000 two-way automatic translation devices and 10,000
copies of the software for future use. The systems can recognize and translate a
vocabulary of over 50,000 English and 100,000 Iraqi Arabic words, and are designed
for civil application environments such as hospitals and training.
