Tag: IBM

IBM Breaks The Record – Stores 330TB Data Into A Tiny Tape

IBM Research Scientists created a new world record in tape storage. Their latest invention can capture 330 terabytes of uncompressed data (equivalent to 330 million books) into a single tape cartridge that can fit into the palm of your hand.

The new record of 201 gigabits per square inch in areal density was achieved on a prototype sputtered magnetic tape developed in collaboration with Sony Storage Media Solutions.

The tape holds 330 terabytes per square inch, beating the earlier record of 220 terabytes of uncompressed data per square inch. The prototype tape is more than 20 times the areal density currently used in commercial tape drives. (Areal recording density is the amount of information that can be stored on a given area of surface.) Since IBM’s first tape unit which could hold upto 2 megabytes of data, this invention is a huge step forward into the future of tape storage. Invented over 60 years ago, storage tapes are typically used by businesses to archive huge amounts of data like tax documents, health care records, etc.

Evangelos Eleftheriou from IBM said

Tape has traditionally been used for video archives, back-up files, replicas for disaster recovery and retention of information on premise, but the industry is also expanding to off-premise applications in the cloud, and While sputtered tape is expected to cost a little more to manufacture than current commercial tape, the potential for very high capacity will make the cost per terabyte very attractive, making this technology practical for cold storage in the cloud.”

Analysts predict that by 2020, global data storage will amount to 40 trillion gigabytes – around 5,200 gigabytes per person. According to experts, using tape is a cheaper and more energy efficient way of storing data in comparison to power-consuming, bulky data centres full of drives.

It wasn’t an easy task creating a tape that could hold 201 gigabits per square inch, as IBM researchers had to develop several new technologies. Working in collaboration with Sony, IBM was able to develop this tech, particularly on enabling increased areal recording densities.

However, retrieving data from tape is a far slower process. In a storage tape, data can only be accessed in the order in which it was written, in other word – sequential access. But IBM and Sony are apparently working on speeding up the data retrieval process.

August 2, 2017
Hilton Hires a Robot Concierge Powered by IBM’s Watson Smart AI

Artificial Intelligence over the past couple of years has progressed at a rapid pace. Be it Robots like Pepper which possess the capability to understand human emotions or simple pieces of intelligent code such as Siri which can based on your past behaviour patterns assist you in your day to day tasks, artificial intelligence is slowly but surely taking center stage in our lives today.

In a continuation of this trend, robots with artificial intelligence are now making way to hotels near you. Hilton, the famous hotel chain, has partnered with IBM to create a robotic concierge that it will fondly call “Connie” in memory of its founder, Conrad Hilton.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC0I08qt5VU

Connie is a Nao robot, a French 58cm-tall bot which is powered by IBM’s AI tech, Watson Smart. IBM claims that this Robo Concierge can understand speech, and the tech giant further claims that it enables the ‘bot to greet guests, answer questions about the hotel, and provide details about local services, sights and restaurants.”

Talking about the move, Rob High, chief technology officer of Watson said in a statement,

“This project with Hilton and WayBlazer represents an important shift in human-machine interaction, enabled by the embodiment of Watson’s cognitive computing. Watson helps Connie understand and respond naturally to the needs and interests of Hilton’s guests—which is an experience that’s particularly powerful in a hospitality setting, where it can lead to deeper guest engagement.”

Just in case you were wondering, Hilton’s friendly Robo Concierge, Connie, is not the first robot to to be employed by a hotel. Japanese hotel, the Hen-na in Nagasaki has a staff which is majorly manned by robots, speaking both Japanese and English.

March 9, 2016
Faster and Smaller, IBM Unveils World’s First 7nm Chip

IBM has just made a breakthrough in chip manufacturing technology. The company, working with GlobalFoundries, Samsung, SUNY, and various equipment suppliers, has created the world’s first 7nm chip with working semiconductors. This would be the first time a chip maker has succeeded to achieve such a feat. Normally, the smaller the transistor gate, the better the performance of the chip. As a result, reducing it to just 7nm will drastically increase the power to performance proportion of the chipset.

While it should be emphasized that commercial 7nm chips remain at least two years away, this experimental chip from IBM and its partners is remarkably significant for three purposes: it is a functional sub-10nm chip; it is the first commercially viable sub-10nm FinFET logic chip that uses silicon-germanium as the channel material and feasible design produced with extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography.

IBM’s 7nm chips use a FinFET transistor configuration that differs from existing FinFETs in that the transistor’s channel is made from silicon-germanium alloy, rather than plain silicon. This is because silicon by itself has problems with electron mobility below 10nm, which restricts current flow and hampers smooth performance. Adding germanium to the mix has been found to resolve these issues.

IBM has managed to pack transistors incredibly tightly on their 7nm chips, achieving a conductor pitch of just 30nm. This leads to the surface area reduction of around 50% matched to bleeding-edge 10nm chips, which IBM believes can result in performance and power improvements of “at least” 50%.

Enabling the first 7nm node transistors is a notable breakthrough for the entire semiconductor industry as we continue to push beyond the limitations of our current capabilities,” said Michael Liehr, the university’s vice president of innovation and research.

Although the company has succeeded in creating a working transistor using 7nm, although, it is still in the prototype stage, and may take at least a few years for such chips to end up in the market. So, this tech will probably make it to final products only after the 10nm chips have been widely used.

July 10, 2015
IBM Verse Integrates with Social Media to Declutter Your Inbox

IBM has launched a new e-mail application, for its enterprise customers, that integrates social media, file sharing and analytics to learn a user’s behavior and predict interactions with co-workers.

Verse e-mail application is built to eliminate as much clutter as possible. The app learns your habits and puts the highest priority people and tasks at the top level. You’ll know if a key team member e-mails you during lunch hours, or that you have a meeting in 10 minutes.

In fact, IBM Verse is said to have a certain level of sentience. Since it is capable of picking up your e-mail habits, and at the same time sends the highest priority people and tasks right to the very top, it minimizes the chance of you missing out on an important e-mail.

It also allows users to transform e-mail content into a list of blogs and social media, view the relationships between different employees in an e-mail, mute a chain and search through attachments. The e-mail’s interface pins a user’s most frequent contacts, schedule and lists of assignments to a dashboard for easy access.

“We came at this from the perspective that this is about changing the game, not just incremental improvements in e-mail,” said Jeff Schick, IBM’s General Manager of Social Solutions. “Guided by analytics, IBM Verse learns your behaviors to adapt to the way you work, wherever you work. And because it’s built for business, it understands you have special security and privacy needs, too.”

IBM Verse runs on IBM’s SoftLayer cloud with the company’s enterprise-grade security. IBM officials say that a beta release will be available to select clients and partners this month. A freemium version delivered via the IBM Cloud marketplace will be available in the first quarter of 2015. IBM Verse will also be offered as an app for both iOS and Android.

November 19, 2014
Apple Slated to Launch 12.9 inch iPad Next Year

With Samsung and Google taking over the tablet market with high-end devices, Apple is preparing to give them a tough competition. Recent reports illustrates that the company is planning to launch a larger 12.9 inch iPad in early 2015.

We first heard of this tablet, which has been dubbed the “iPad Pro” in rumors, in mid-2013 with a prospective 2014 launch date. However, recent rumors suggests that the plans for the tablet had been put on hold. The new 12.9-in. iPad will be launched in the spring, as reported by Bloomberg, following the company’s release of new iPhones next month.

Apple has been struggling with the declining sales of 10 inch and 7.9-inch tablets. The plan to launch this new iPad pro is said to be the outcome of this sluggish market scenario which has been replaced by large smartphone and tablets from likes of Google and Samsung.

According to rumors, the larger 12.9-inch iPad will include a high pixel density display that is almost of an ultra high-definition quality. It will likely adopt many of the design elements offered in the current iPad Air and iPad mini, like an ultrathin chassis and narrow side bezels.

Mass production of Apple’s iPad Air with a 9.7-inch (24.6-cm) screen has already started, and it is likely to be unveiled by the end of current quarter. Along with this, a new version of the 7.9-inch iPad mini is also entering production and is likely to be available by the end of the year. Both of these devices are expected to include upgraded processors and support for the Touch ID fingerprint sensor.

Apple is shaking up the iPad line to increase the sales. Also company is trying to revive iPad sales by selling the devices to large companies through its new partnership with IBM. IBM will use its sales-force to sell iPads to large enterprises. It’ll also make enterprise specific apps for the tablets.

August 27, 2014
Twitter Buys 900 IBM Patents

Twitter has agreed to buy 900 patents from International Business Machines Corp. to gain access to new technology and build a defense against infringement suits.

The deal came about a month after Twitter revealed that IBM had accused it of violating three of its patents related to advertising, “resource locators,” and discovery of contacts. Twitter was willing at that time to handle the situation outside of court, and it appears it went that way.

A cross-licensing agreement will help safeguard Twitter against similar claims in the future. The most high profile exhibit of buying patents to curb future lawsuits would be Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility.

IBM is one of the industry’s largest research spenders and stockpilers of intellectual property, a consistent leader in US patent filings and the owner of some 41,000 patents. Twitter is following on the heels of Facebook, which itself faced similar claims before its own 2012 IPO.

Twitter is seeking to get more revenue from retailers and is trying to make it easier for users to shop via its 140-character messages.

January 31, 2014