IBM is one of the largest firms in the world in terms of both market capitalization and number of employees. It has held the record for most patents generated by a company for twenty consecutive years. A lot of time and effort was required to bring this company to the point is is today, but don’t let that fool you. Even the hard-working employees at IBM need to take some time off work and have a little fun. On Tuesday, IBM released a video on their YouTube channel called “A Boy and His Atom”. It’s a short, stop-motion movie created by a small team of nanophysicists as a part of a side project. It isn’t…

Personal computers have reached a tipping point in recent years where the innovations are more about speed and capabilities than absolute technological advances. They’re getting faster and smaller but for the most part ground-breaking technological leaps are a thing of the past. That’s not to say we won’t see anything amazing come out soon. Other than tablet technology, there simply hasn’t been anything that shook the computer world recently. As we look back in history over the last 40 years, there have been true game-changers. For some, it was simply a matter of changing the way we interface…

Today, we operate in a computer world where speed is graded by megabytes and gigabytes per second in data transfer alone. That doesn’t even go into the amazing computational speeds. Nearly 60 years ago, such speeds could not be comprehended, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have fast machines of their own. Take the 705 Data Processing System by IBM. It helped business maintain a large number of records, perform arithmetic of numbers as large as 1 million at a rate of over 400 calculations per second, and make “logical operations decisions” at 240,000 per minute. Not too shabby without a Pentium…

A rose by any other name… Digital media. It didn’t really mean much outside of offering content to people for consumption. Technically speaking, that’s what Yahoo has always done outside of search and email. It’s for this reason that the popular web portal’s move to branding itself as a “technology company” marks the second strange move they made in less than two weeks. The first, shifting away from allowing people to work from home, will continue to receive more attention because of its impact on employees, but the branding and image shift is actually a more important (and illogical) move….

Today IBM announced several new software and cloud-based services to advance the transformation of organizations into social businesses. From marketing to human resources, these new offerings will help business leaders empower the 21st Century workforce and transform client experiences. Following IBM’s December 2012 acquisition of Kenexa, IBM announced the release of the IBM Employee Experience Suite, a web-based social networking environment which will integrate IBM’s industry-leading enterprise social networking platform with Kenexa’s recruiting, on-boarding, learning…

There has been plenty of buzz lately about the rise in shopping from mobile devices. Smartphones in particular are seeing sharp increases as entries into the eCommerce. Black Friday saw over a billion dollars in online sales. Despite the trend, the use of shopping apps is still low on the list. Gaming, weather apps, and social networking each account for over twice the number of people who use their apps regularly. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of people shopping on mobile devices. It just means they aren’t using apps to do it. Yet. In this infographic, we take a look at some interesting…

One of the biggest risks with drugs such as antibiotics that chemically attack bacteria and other harmful organisms is that a tolerance or immunity can be developed over time. There are also side-effects that can debilitate patients treated chemically. IBM hopes to have solved both issues through nanotechnology by developing “ninja polymers” that attack deadly bacteria such as Staphylococcus physically rather than chemically. When in the bloodstream or in contact with water, these polymers self-assemble into microscopic structures that target bacteria based upon their electrostatic…

Very few people would miss the answer to the question, “What’s the most valuable tech brand in the world?” Sure, some might say Google, Microsoft, or IBM, but most are familiar with Apple’s domination. It holds true in a recent study as part of WPP’s Millward Brown annual study of “BrandZ” that documents the most valuable global brands. Of note is that nearly half of the brands in the top 100 list fell this year, something that hasn’t happened since the worldwide recession of 2009. You can download the infographic below as a PDF or view it online thanks to Connecticut Ford. Via: BrandZ Related articles…

The acquisition of 750 patents from IBM by Facebook signals the venture of the social networking giant into a realm new to them: patent defense. The company has never been as involved as some of their peers when it comes to patenting with 503 filed to date and 56 or more issued, but this will expand their portfolio in light of a recent battle waged against them by Yahoo. How do purchased patents after the fact help them fight Yahoo? Leverage. There are unsubstantiated (but likely accurate) reports that some of the patents purchased were being licensed by Yahoo. If this is correct, it would justify this…

Every year, IBM takes a stab at telling the future by examining what they’re working on in their 5in5 series. This year’s list was surprisingly bland compared to past ones as they explored technologies that many would agree aren’t necessarily 5 years away; in two cases, we should see these technologies enter our daily lives within 1 or 2 years. It’s not an insult of what they’re trying to do – they’re the scientists and we’re just bloggers. It’s just that their predictions are a bit conservative. Energy Applying kinetic energy solutions to our lives is something that makes complete sense other than…