IBM Watson™ made its debut in February 2011 when the Deep Question & Answer software system defeated two previous reigning human champions – Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a three-night special Jeopardy! showcase. The event made for carnival headlines but most news reports failed to connect Watson’s performance with its intended application- to transform the nature of human productivity in an age of information-rich, context dependent and software-mediated work environments. Watson is designed to augment (improve) our capacity to think through complex problems, ask the right questions,  judge possible solutions and make informed confident decisions based on real-world data that exists within our own memory banks and beyond.

Productivity and Life-long Learning via Personal Assistants IBM Watson™ and Apple Siri™  are early signals of what might transform work and lifelong learning around software based personal assistants that push human beings to think more deeply and broadly about questions, answers and their personal confidence levels in making decisions. IBM is leading the way in an emerging paradigm for software – based on improving human cognitive performance in an era of endless streams of data and changing contexts around the marketplace and collective industry knowledge base. The next step for IBM’s Watson is to enter the workplace and help to transform the capacity of human work.  IBM’s public roadmap for Watson begins in three main industries: Healthcare, Finance and Customer Service.  But first, let’s explore why Watson matters….

Why Watson Matters… Natural Language, Box in a Cloud, Focus on Answers & Honesty about Confidence Levels 

[click to continue…]

{ 0 comments }

In March 2011 I was invited to Oklahoma State University to deliver two talks on the future of energy for the School of International Studies Global Briefings Series and at an awards ceremony for the campus Institute for Sustainable Environments.  During my visit I was asked to speak with Rob McClendon Host of Oklahoma Horizons show:

Part One: Garry Golden – Energy Futurist

Things I forgot to mention:
Biofuels should be clarified as investing in’next generation’ (non-food) sources such as algae, bacteria that leverage carbon and hydrocarbons from non-food biomass (waste; byproducts; switchgrass, et al).   The US DOE has set clear limits on food-based biofuel production and within the industry there is clear direction to move to next generation (non-food) feedstocks.  Corn and soy are NOT the future of biofuels!  Also – it was a long day at OSU with multiple talks– and I completely misrepresented electrofuels which are based on non-photosynthetic energy conversion.

Part Two: Energy Futurist Garry Golden (Continued)

Notes:
My ’15 years’ (comment shoud have been 1990s, not 1990); Also, I mentioned distributed power generation via fuel cells because Oklahoma has an existing manufacturing base in polymers that could be extended into fuel cells as solid state polymer-based energy conversion.

{ 1 comment }

DuPont acquisition of Danisco seen as catalyst for Era of Bio Industrialism

The Wall Street View Last week, DuPont announced its acquisition of Denmark-based Danisco based on the ‘clear synergies with [its] Nutrition & Health and Applied BioSciences‘ business units. DuPont’s $5.8 Billion strategic investment is based on two macro trends that will shape global markets over the next half century: increased global demand for food (both commodity ingredients and [...]

Read the full article →

Why Uber car’s On Demand Service is more Disruptive than Zipcar’s Alternative Ownership Model

Forecast & Outlook: Industry pundits might soon recognize the most innovative transportation startup in the land as San Francisco-based Uber: a compay that connects fleet drivers to users via an on-demand, mobility-as-service business model. This high-tech, high-touch, point-to-point service empowers fleet owners/drivers and has the potential to provide users with a more compelling access solution to Zipcar’s [...]

Read the full article →

The Rise of a Geek Industrial Society – Why The Future Will be Programmed

Part One of Series: The Future of Programming (for Non-Programmers) Today we are witnessing the rise of the Programmer as one of the most important enabling actors in the global knowledge economy. These individuals and communities who design and build software that power computing devices and networks that permeate our world might occupy ‘the’ drivers [...]

Read the full article →

2011 Wish List for Energy and Transportation Industries

Having started off the New Year with two radio interviews on the future of transporation and energy (Coast to Coast ; The Takeaway), I expanded my notes into a list of wish list for  the year(s) ahead. Change happens slowly in the energy and transportation sectors – and the majority of ‘predictions‘ are essentially about [...]

Read the full article →

The Future of Data – A Web of Wisdom or Manipulation?

World Wide Web Part Three: The Wisdom Web Web 1.0: Get Online! No problem, let’s build a Website. Web 2.0: Get Social! No problem, let’s build a community. Web 3.0: Get Smarter! How do we do that? The Web’s Reality Check: Not there yet! The web has not yet matured as a platform for lifelong [...]

Read the full article →

Are GM and Segway Planning A New Mobility as Service Category?

Is the auto industry preparing to introduce a new product+service category for the future of mobility?  Could software and sensing systems transform the chariot or pod form factor into a commercially viable mobility-as-service solution in the years ahead? Or is this all just for auto show eye-candy, PopSci magazine covers, and Hollywood sets rather than city [...]

Read the full article →

Carbon Nanomaterials and Obama’s Vision of Risk-takers, the Doers, and the Makers of Things

A lot can happen in 10 years when looking at the launch phase of new industries!  In 1990, the ‘information superhighway‘ was an abstraction not fully understood by the public.  Most people did not care about computers- or demand products or services that would help them connect or be social on this digital highway. And few [...]

Read the full article →

Point, Click & Learn: The Future of Cloud based Visual Search and Augmented Learning

‘Point, Click & Learn’ Visual search and augmented reality experiences seemed poised to evolve as early adopter platforms for learning based on images, objects and places that exist in the physical world. Google, Nokia, Ricoh, Intel, and Microsoft have all demonstrated or released beta and 1.0 version services that layer digital information over images and video captured [...]

Read the full article →