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IBM has won more U.S. patents every year for the last eight years running. Why? One reason is IBM's fantastic Watson Research Labs. We visit Big Blue's Brain Trust.
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Inside Big Blue's Brain
Inside Big Blue's Brain
April 4, 2001
Every few years, I make a pilgrimage to the holy land of gizmology: to the inner sanctum of IBM's astounding Watson
Research Lab. Located in rural Westchester, New York, Watson Labs has produced many of the critical revolutionary technologies
that launched the digital age.
IBM Watson inventions have included the first magnetic hard disk drive (RAMAC); FORTRAN computing language; solid-state
memory (DRAM);
relational databases; speech recognition; silicon germanium transistors; Trackpoint mouse; and even Deep Blue, the first computer
that beat the reigning world chess champion. For eight years in a row, IBM has earned more U.S. patents than any other company.
My recent visit to the brain trust of Big Blue afforded a fascinating insight into the future of technology. (They also showed me some
fabulous "toys", which I share below!)
If you imagine a time when circuitry will be "printed" on fabric or embedded in bendable plastic-paper, IBM is making that dream a
reality. Flexible transistor technology will one day allow people to uncrumple a
"digital newspaper" from their pockets that features instantly updated text and video.
As chip-makers make more ornate and complex processors, they push against the limits of physics. IBM is
investigating "self-assembling nanomaterials" that will allow storage on an atomic scale and other techniques to make
transistors using only a few atoms.
(Click here to read about IBM's "Nanotubes" Research)
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IBM's Bertha >>>> |
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It may seem hard to believe that a screen can be made 25-times sharper than current displays. If you've ever seen the finest
high definition screen, you most certainly were astonished. Now imagine a screen more than four-times clearer than the best
high def screen! Well, IBM's Bertha is the world's clearest computer display and it absolutely takes your breath away.
Already, with 200 pixels per inch, this 22-inch diagonal 9.2 megapixel screen
shows a staggeringly beautiful image.
Already, the U.S. Department of Energy has snapped up some of the early prototypes.
Words fail to express what only the eye
can see: crystal clear images. For example, Robert Wisnieff and Kai Schleupen, the researchers who helped develop the screen,
showed me a highly detailed map of the entire New York area in a 50-mile radius and you could see every single street unaided
with a magnifying glass! One day, screens of this exceptional quality will grace every wall and handheld… but when the
units are first sold, they are likely to command a pretty steep price.
go to >>
IBM's "Bertha"
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WebSphere Translation Server >>>> |
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 I have this fantasy that I will be able to use some simple device to easily converse with others
in faraway lands who speak languages foreign to me. We're not there yet, but a
similar development will now make surfing the World Wide Web less linguistically
challenging.
IBM's WebSphere Translation Server technology automatically
translates websites into a number of languages.
IBM says that currently "there are more than 407 million people online, but less than half have English as their native tongue."
Machine translation is by no means perfect but, simply by clicking a button, the
IBM's WebSphere Translation Server helps remove
language barriers to communicating in many parts of the globe.
IBM's Brian Garr gave me a chance to test the technology on my site and the experience has been fascinating.
(Try it yourself!) People who know only Japanese,
Chinese, Italian, French, Spanish, and German can now get the gist of what I'm discussing on these pages. The original
HTML web formatting is seamlessly maintained. Of course, cutesy phrases and idiomatic expressions are often turned into
gobbledygook. (I'd love to read what the IBM computer does translating THAT sentence into Chinese!)
However, with very little trouble, a little bit of technology has potentially doubled (!) my readership. As the web truly
becomes "world wide", entirely new audiences and customers will emerge. IBM announced the
WebSphere Translation Server
in January 2001 and it costs $10,000 per language pair.
go to >>
IBM's WebSphere Translation Server
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Personal Voice Assistant >>>> |
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IBM also showed me a marvelous palm-sized device (in fact the prototype is a Palm III,) that uses voice-recognition. Soon, with such technology, you will "ask" your handheld device for directions; translate phrases
into foreign languages; and control many other applications with verbal commands. After all, who wants to use
typing or "graffiti" when people still prefer to communicate with their voice. The
IBM's Personal Voice Assistant
technology is not a product "for sale" yet, but you'll be seeing such devices powered by it in stores within the next few years.
go to >>
IBM's Personal Voice Assistant
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IBM TransNote >>>> |
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It's joyous to see technology leave the lab and wind up in people's hands. IBM's TransNote , just released last month,
is a personal computer that features a wild new portfolio design. The ThinkPad TransNote combines a mobile computer
with a digital notepad allowing seamless transfer of handwritten paper-notes directly into applications on the stunning
touch-screen computer. Once notes are written, they can be "recognized and translated" into type and attached to various
applications (like your calendar for instance.) I've been playing with the TransNote
for several happy weeks now and
everybody wants to get their mitts on it. Especially cool is a feature that allows you to save and share notes with
others in the handy Acrobat PDF file format. One obvious oversight (sure to be corrected on later models) is the
wacky idea of keeping TransNote's computer and pen-based handwriting tablet inseparable. It's obvious that sometimes
you want to take the sleek computer and other times the pen tablet, but rarely do you need them permanently attached
together at the same time. The retail price for the IBM ThinkPad TransNote is approximately $3000.
go to >>
IBM TransNote
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IBM USB Memory Key >>>> |
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One of the accessories that came with the TransNote is IBM's USB Memory Key: a storage device that shares information between
computers. It delivers 8 MB of memory in a portable key-sized device. Forget diskettes; I find it cool to carry around the
USB key wherever I am. (Perhaps I should get a more exciting life…) Afraid someone will look at your secret files? They can't
if you carry them with you.
go to >>
IBM USB Memory Key
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by Daniel Dubno
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