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Monday, October 30, 2006 |
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Personal Healthcare Data
IBM has been making a large investment in healthcare solutions that use it's software, systems, and technology. More importantly the company acquired Healthlink, along with 600 of the top healthcare thought leaders in America. IBM has just released a new seventy-two page report called Healthcare 2015: Win-win or lose-lose? (Please note that the pdf file is 3 megabytes in size). The report describes a "portrait and a path to successful transformation" that will become a "how to" book for many healthcare leaders around the world. Some of the background and statistics cited will really get your attention -- like the World Health Organization rating the United States #37 in the world on overall health system performance. Most of us have experienced the duplicate data problem. A doctor finds it easier to order a new blood test than to get the data from a blood test you had a few days before. As consumers we are finding the data to be out of our reach. Blood tests start with blood which then goes into analytical equipment which creates digital information about the blood. The best "data" you can hope for is to get a faxed copy of the results. Contrast this with the financial part of our lives where millions of people use various software to download, record, store, analyze, and review every detail of their financial life. When it comes to data about our health we are mostly isolated -- even though it is our data. This is going to change dramatically as standards and online systems emerge for EMR's (electronic medical records). EMR's will enable us to get control over our health data and also allow healthcare providers to have access to it -- authorized by us as we see fit. There are many resources available about EMR's if you want to learn more. In fact, you can securely store and manage your personal health records for free at myNDMA. The site allows you to access your medical images -- for example, mammograms and other x-rays -- and electronic health records whenever you need them. You can also document your personal and family medical history and have your records available to you on-demand to give to a new doctor or to get a second opinion. One step closer to getting control of our health data.
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Tuesday, October 24, 2006 |
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Blue Brain
IBM’s Blue Gene supercomputer is helping to advance our understanding of important biological processes such as protein folding and a growing list of applications including hydrodynamics, quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics, climate modeling and financial modeling. The topics have vocabularies of many-syllable words but they are changing the world for the better. The Blue Gene supercomputer has a peak speed of 360 Teraflops. In layman terms that means that the machine can perform 360,000,000,000,000 (trillion) calculations every second. That kind of horsepower doesn't match the human brain but it is getting closer. I have seen a Blue Gene in operation at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. It is a sight to behold. Back to brains. The idea is to create a detailed model of the circuitry in the neocortex – the largest and most complex part of the human brain. Over time, the project hopes to model other areas of the brain and eventually build an accurate, computer-based model of the entire brain. The process starts with "wet" chemistry. A dye is injected into each neuron of the brain to reveal a kind of map called a morphology. After gaining a view of the neurons, it sets the groundwork to build a digital model in the Blue Gene that emulates the real thing. The neocortex is organized into thousands of columns of neurons. Each column has a diameter of less than two one-hundredths of an inch and contains 10,000 neurons. Each neuron stands a little more than 1/16 inches high and receives over 10,000 inputs from other neurons. Suffice it to say that the brain is a very complex thing. In the case of Blue Brain, the end result will be a greatly enhanced understanding of how the human brain works which will lead to curing the things that can go wrong with it. A better understanding of the brain -- the supercomputer of all supercomputers -- will also help develop even better supercomputers. |
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Monday, October 16, 2006 |
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The Future of Advertising
The convergence of the PC and TV has been exaggerated -- so far. Yes, there are some interesting ways to watch TV on your PC or surf the web on your TV but, at least for the immediate future, the PC is something we use at our desk or lap and the TV is more of an entertainment center. (Note: when not in the home, the handheld will be come dominant -- that is another story). High definition TV is great for enjoying a DVD or a HD broadcast. The PC is the place I go to do email, do some research, make purchases, read or write, and read the news. Isn't the TV our main for source for news? Increasingly not. On days that I am not traveling to board meetings or conferences, I like to exercise. The recumbent bike and elliptical cross-trainer make good perches from which to watch cable TV news. If I am not watching a previously recorded news program -- and I do record several per day -- it is hard to get any news. The official data will show somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes per hour as being advertising. During the day it is closer to 20. That means one out of three minutes is advertising. You can flip between a half dozen news shows and find no news. If you subtract the news channel self-promotions, details on the latest deranged family member who has done something horrible, tabloid stories, and news about the news, then what you have left is a small fraction of an hour -- some critics say slightly less than five minutes per hour of real news. Some people say CNN means "contains no news" and that when FOX says "your station for news" they really mean "your station for advertising". For years, Netflix has been my way to watch movies, but the other night I was watching a movie where there was no digital video recorder or DVD player. The movie was interrupted every ten minutes with 10-12 advertisements. The advertisements are mostly insulting to one's intelligence. There are no insights into anything and they grate on people's nerves. Honestly, I have to say that most of the ads are obnoxious -- as bad as spam. The shotgun blast ads aren't fraudulent but they add no value to our lives. Zero. Do we need broadcast television to tell us the latest interest rate at ditech.com or to be reminded four times per hour that Scottrade is "all about value" or to be constantly told to ask our doctor about this pill or that pill? The bottom line is that most of us don't rely on the TV as a source of ideas for things we need. There may be some people that actually enjoy advertisements. That is ok, but the rest of us want to "opt out". Digital video recorders such as TiVo are a step in the right direction. If you want to watch a 7:00 PM news program, you can record it and then start watching it at 7:20 and not miss a thing. When it comes to movies, some people say they use the ads for biological and nourishment breaks, but do we need that every ten minutes? Yes, the premium cable movie channels are expensive, but millions of people would rather pay the monthly fee and be able to watch a movie from beginning to end without irrelevant ads droning at them. The most watched TV show ever is "The Sopranos". I am not commenting on the content of the program -- just on the business model. Although it's available in only a third of American homes, approximately 10 million viewers per week actually paid to watch it. There was no advertising. This is why the percentage of time people spend in front of TV's watching DVD's and subscription based programming will continue to climb. Meanwhile the Internet is giving us what we want -- control over what we watch and when we watch it. Youtube is the tip of the iceberg. Search based advertising is booming because it is relevant to what we are searching for. It puts us in control. I have been using Weather Underground (the first Internet weather service) since 1995. The thing I like the most is that members -- at a cost of $10 per year -- get no ads. No banners, dancing bears, flashing action bars, or pop-ups that cover the weather. A weather site that has just weather. What a concept. When it comes to news, my source for years has been Google News. The headlines are based on what people are reading. Sometimes a top story is from the New York Times, sometimes it is from Al Jazeera, or a newspaper site in Houston, Philadelphia, or many other places. I feel like I am getting a wide variety of coverage and opinions and not just what the "local" paper has to say. The Internet has always been about "Power to the People" and the people are sending lots of signals about advertising. They don't like it. They want "options, preferences, no ads" built into their viewing experience. Meanwhile, content executives are looking for even more ways to get in our face, send text messages to our mobile phones, and get into our instant messages and blogs. They have the future of advertising all wrong. Companies have to market their goods and services, but the model has to change. Sponsoring sports events and getting products used by actors in movies are fine but most important is to build great web sites and customer support that surpass our expectations. That is where the investments should be made. The result will be that bloggers and good old fashioned word of mouth will spread the word about how great the company is. Companies that continue to spam us with their ads are going to get a very bad reputation and the media companies that run them are going to lose their readers and viewers. Internet Technology , Media , On Demand , People October 16, 2006 06:13 PM |
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Sunday, October 8, 2006 |
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Musical Gala
The most special part of the evening was the music. The New York Philharmonic was founded in 1842. Lorin Maazel, became Music Director in 2002 after having led more than 150 orchestras in more than 5,000 opera and concert performances around the world. This truly remarkable man uses no score yet seems to know every note and passage intimately. Having memorized six minutes or so of Beethoven and Mozart for my own conducting experiences, I have great respect for someone who knows countless hours of music. Maazel made his first conducting appearance at age six and I estimate he must be 76 years old. After seventy years of conducting, there are likely not many classical music pieces he doesn't know. The opening piece last night was Weber’s Overture to Oberon, often regarded as his finest composition. It was followed by one of my favorites -- Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, the “Great” G minor symphony. After the intermission came the incredible “Eroica”, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3. I was brought to tears during the second movement. The strength of every section of the orchestra was overwhelming and the great acoustic characteristics in the Zoellner Center just amplified them to perfection. An orchestra is only as good as the sum of it's great musicians and the conductor. The Philharmonic consists of many stars, each famous in their own right. Glenn Dicterow, the concertmaster, has been winning numerous awards and competitions around the world since he was a boy. Stanley Drucker is the most famous clarinetist in the world. (See Marvelous Mozart). The list goes on but I was most impressed with Liang Wang, the twenty-six year old principal oboist. The principal oboist sits in the center of the orchestra and in many ways *is* the center of the orchestra, second only to the conductor. Liang Wang spends hours every day shaping the reeds for his instrument. As he performs he rises six inches out of his chair and provides strong leadership appreciated by all. Wang was born in in Qing Dao, China, in 1980 and comes from a musical family. He studied at the Beijing Central Conservatory, which has a thirteen acre campus, over 500,000 volumes in the Music Library, and more than 500 pianos. Needless to say, there is great appreciation for classical music in China. Although I can not verify this, a friend last night told me that there are currently forty-seven million Chinese students studying the violin. |
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Thursday, October 5, 2006 |
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IBM Happenings: September 2006
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Monday, October 2, 2006 |
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DEMO in San Diego
Paul Jacobs, ceo of Qualcomm, gave the keynote. He talked about more radios operating concurrently in our mobile phones -- cell phone connections, WiFi, gps from satellites, etc. He envisions much faster networks so that we can spend more time listening to music and watching videos as opposed to waiting for things to download. He showed a picture of a mobile phone containing a 10 megapixel camera. Phones will be inside of mp3 players, gps devices, cameras, etc with transferable subscription plans so that one mobile phone number will work on multiple things. There will also be "TV-out" so that our mobile phones will be able to connect to large flat panels in our homes to display the pictures and movies we take while outdoors. Keyboards will remain better than voice recognition for now. Our mobile phones will have tailored applications including glucometers and other forms of remote healtchare monitoring. Social networking will allow all this new content to come together. Moderating the FutureScan panels is a way to share one's perspective but more importantly to help bring out the depth and breadth of knowledgeable experts through an interactive conversation plus questions from the moderator and the audience. The panels this time were on the subjects of mobile computing and nanotechnology, The idea was to look at "the more distant future" and find some clues, not about what is hot today or next year, but about the next, next, next big thing. We were fortunate to have a very distinguished panel for both subjects. Tuesday's panel on "The Future of Mobile" included Tom Jacobs, Director of Research, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Juergen Urbanski, General Manager, FON North America, and Joe Ziskin, Vice President, Corporate Strategy, IBM Corporation. Each brought a different perspective about a day when mobile phones surpass desktop computers as our primary interface to information and services. Tom sees a big role for open source software to provide digital rights management so that could enable people to buy content on the web and hear it or see it on their PC or their mobile phone. Joe sees the enterprises of the world embracing a mobile world for communications and for applications. Juergen described a world where everyone has WiFi access. His company is helping make it happen. Take a look at http://www.fon.com. I signed up today. No doubt I will refer to Tom, Juergen, and Joe in subsequent postings. Wednesday morning's panel on "The Future of Nanotechnology" included Dr. Gian-Luca Bona, Department Group Manager of Science & Technology, Almaden Research Center, IBM Corporation, Dr. Gerald Hoegl, CEO, Metcomb Nanostructures, and Dr. Rohit Sharma, Principal, Mohr Davidow Ventures. Millions of dollars have poured into nanotechnology startups in recent years, leaving many to wonder when will the market begin to see the return on those investments. All three panelists were not only bullish but bullish on seeing things in the next few years. Gian-Luca talked about storage and logic devices of incredibly small dimensions. He talked about nanometers. A nanometer is the size of a handful of atoms. A grain of salt is equivalent in size to more than 100 billion atoms! (See prior patrickWeb story about nano). Gerald showed a new material called cellular aluminum which will soon revolutionize cars and aerospace. Using nanotechnology, his company has created a material that can be molded into any shape which is strong as steel but yet floats in water. Rohit was enthusiastic about nanotechnology in healthcare. He is investing in companies that are creating cures for things not thought to be curable and paving the way toward personalized medicine based on our individual genetic makeup. (See prior patrickWeb story about computational biology). The best part of Demo is the demos! Sixty-seven companies showed their stuff and, although there were some companies with solutions looking for problems, there were a lot of impressive ideas and plans. I could not possibly do justice here to what I saw and learned but I will mention a few of the highlights and encourage you to visit the archive at demo.com to see the demos and explore things you may want to learn more about. Here are some brief comments about a few of the things I found interesting.
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Seems like 
The human brain is one of the many marvelous parts of humans. It has been quite interesting over the last few years to read books and hear lectures on the subject. (See 
The title may sound presumptuous since I am not an advertising
expert. However, from a consumer point of view, I suspect my views may be shared
by many of my friends, colleagues, and readers. Let's start with television
and then consider the web. There are very big differences.
It was a very special privilege to attend the 14,326th concert of 
GrandCentral - gives you a lifetime single phone number and a web site where you can manage all your inbound calls. A call to your grandcentral phone # will ring on all the phones you want - home, mobile, etc. Each caller can have a unique ringtone and you can identify spam callers and have their calls ignored. Voicemails can become emails and you can record and save any phone call. This is a really neat service. I signed up.