Five tech-powered changes in next five years, IBM predicted

Technology stalwart IBM on Tuesday predicted classrooms getting to know students and doctors using DNA to customize care are among five big changes on the horizon.

IBM said that its annual forecast of five ways technology will change lives in the coming five years was "driven by a new era of cognitive systems where machines will learn, reason and engage with us in a more natural and personalized way."

And while software evolves to "think" in ways similar to the human brain, computing power and troves of data kept handy in the Internet "cloud" will enable machines to power innovations in classrooms, local shops, doctors' offices, city streets and elsewhere, according to the firm behind the Watson computer that triumphed on US television game show Jeopardy.

"Over time these computers will get smarter and more customized through interactions with data, devices and people, helping us take on what may have been seen as unsolvable problems by using all the information that surrounds us and bringing the right insight or suggestion to our fingertips right when it's most needed," IBM contended.

Predictions for the coming five years included "classrooms of the future" equipped with systems that track and analyze each student's progress to tailor curriculum and help teachers target learning techniques.

"Basically, the classroom learns you," IBM vice president of innovation Bernie Meyerson told AFP. "It is surprisingly straight-forward to do."

In another prediction, IBM sees retail shops large or small blending online and real-world storefronts with 'Watson-like' technologies and augmented reality.

Also, doctors will tailor treatments using patient DNA, according to Meyerson.

"Knowing your genetic make-up lets you sort through a huge variety of treatment options and determine the best course to follow," he said.

"They don't have to carpet bomb your body to treat cancer," Meyerson continued. "There is the ability to tailor the attack to improve the efficacy against cancer cells while leaving healthy cells untouched."

Smart machines tapping into the Internet cloud will also be able to serve as "digital guardians" protecting people from hackers by recognizing unusual online behavior, such as shopping binges at dubious websites, and spying scam email messages or booby-trapped links.

"The digital guardian will know you are not someone who goes to a poker site and tops off your account," Meyerson said. "Not only does it shut down the behavior, but it tracks it back to who is doing it and passes the information on to authorities."

The final prediction was that cities will weave social networks, smartphones, sensors, and machine learning to better manage services and build relationships with citizens.

"The city will help you live in it," Meyerson said. "There is a new generation of leaders coming in who are extremely tech savvy and making good use of it."

Sources: AFP-Times

Information innovator

Information technology (IT) is all about innovation. Vish Iyer can’t agree more.

Mobility, social media and big data are all hot-button topics. Cloud computing frees up people from the desk, so an IT system can be managed even on the road. “For a bank, it could be payment via Internet banking or mobile phone,” says the high-flying corporate executive, dapper in a light purple shirt.

Vish Iyer: 'There is no advantage in having 20 or 30 years of experience unless you are ...very merit-driven and work-driven'.



“For an insurance company, it could mean enabling an agent to get quotations and conduct transactions on his or her mobile.” For an airline, pilots no longer carry huge bags with heavy operating manuals. “We put that on an iPad,” he adds.

Few would believe the president for Asia Pacific at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has neither training in IT nor a background in engineering. He learns by doing.

Born and raised in Kolkata around the time when India’s first computer arrived, Iyer graduated from St Xavier’s College, one of the city’s best-known educational institutions with a major in taxation and economics.

Now the head of the largest service provider in the Asia-Pacific region based in Singapore, he manages 10,000 employees in 13 countries including Australia, Japan, China and South Korea.

The 45-year-old Indian company, whose clients include Microsoft and ING Group, is the provider of IT services and business solutions, with a turnover exceeding $12 billion and market capitalization of $45 billion on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

It is part of the Tata group, India’s largest conglomerate in seven sectors including communications, engineering and energy, with a revenue of more than $100 billion in the fiscal year 2011-12.

As a certified accountant, Iyer moved on from the financial field to other areas including human resources, marketing, strategy, mergers and acquisition. “I have been a chief financial officer many times,” he tells China Daily Asia Weekly at the TCS Hong Kong office.

But that didn’t stop him from venturing into new fields after three and a half decades. Midway through his career, he moved into a new-born industry in India.

His rationale is: “What matters is how you put your basic training to use and how you quickly learn from the surroundings. You can do anything as long as you have a will to do it, and you are determined to work hard enough.”

He spent a decade at IBM, where he was director of corporate development. IT has since become his longest stint.

He has witnessed the birth of the industry along with the ups and downs. “The IT industry is very fascinating. Every two to three years are completely different. In that sense, everybody got to continuously learn,” he says.

In the IT world, experience doesn’t necessarily give you an edge over the younger generation. Two-thirds of the company’s workforce has about three years of experience and the average age of a TCS employee is just 28.

“There is no advantage (in) having 20 or 30 years of experience unless you are … very merit-driven and work-driven,” Iyer says.

“This is the industry across the world (where) everything looks the same. There is no different standard in the US or Japan. Once you are inside IT, it is the same. It talks the same language and (has the same) quality level.”

The capability to locate young talent matters for the industry. To Iyer, the Chinese mainland not only has a staggering domestic market but also vast trained manpower resources.

TCS is among the first Indian companies to enter the Chinese mainland as the first wholly-owned foreign enterprise. The IT consultancy commenced its operations in Shanghai in 2002, then established a development center in Hangzhou in Zhejiang province in October of the same year. Its banking products are used by Bank of China in more than 40 provinces.

Iyer sees the potential to substantially increase China’s TCS workforce from its current number of 3,000 people, as the company’s sales growth in China outpaces that in the Americas. TCS now has relations with 20 colleges in China.

“Our business is all about people,” he says. “At the end of the day, we need to find out where are these talents available for serving our customers. China is very important from that point of view — as a pool of talent. It’s equally important for the size of the economy, too.”

“We are very bullish about China,” he said in a previous interview. “Its full potential has not yet been harnessed … We’re looking to leverage its position as an innovation center and a hub for the Northeast Asia region.”

TCS has started to provide a ground-breaking cloud-based service that enables smaller banks and credit unions to establish their own Internet, mobile and ATM facilities by paying a monthly fee. “A village bank need not have an IT department, but the same technology that empowers a (central bank) is now available to small and medium enterprises.”

The TCS pioneer project has found a home in the world’s second largest economy. iCity or the Intelligent City, utilizes smart technologies and collective intelligence to improve a city’s livability and sustainability.

These cities will be built on cloud infrastructure that makes them easy to run. Every citizen will own a personalized information page for health records and blood pressure measurements and even get health alerts and doctors’ advice.

Imagine buildings that glean energy from the sun and rain, reducing energy consumption, and embedded software in cars and traffic poles that automatically monitor local traffic. At the same time, healthcare and consumer services are dispensed to citizens at home, saving time, cost and valuable resources.

An iCity project in southern China’s port city of Guangzhou is slated for a soft launch later this year. More blueprints are on majors’ drawing boards in first- and second-tier Chinese cities, including Tianjin, Ningbo and Chengdu.

“The Indian IT industry over the last 20 years has done exceedingly well,” Iyer says. “Works of best quality are from this industry. There (has been) a lot of proud achievements — so it’s an exciting place to be in.”

But when asked about the most exciting moment in his life, the president’s answer has surprisingly nothing to do with his career. “The day when my daughter was born, and when I was holding her in my hands,” he says, with a gentle smile.

“Lots of people talk about work-life balance. I think each person has to find that balance himself … Family influence is a strong support for the profession I pursue, so there are no conflicts or contradiction.”

Looking back, Iyer has been with his two children — his 23-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son — through every important step of their life. “I (accompany) them through every exam, drop them off and pick them up after classes, and consult their teachers for college admissions. As long as you enjoy it, you’ll find time for doing it,” he adds.

Technology has been the savior for this family man with a hectic business schedule with long hours of frequent travel.

“I am on the road 50 or 60 percent of the time. Each month, I am outside my hometown for 20 days,” he says. “My children have grown up with me spending a lot of time at work. But this is a world of Facebook, email and Skype. That’s what we do now,” he says.

What makes his day? Iyer answers professionally without a second of hesitation: “To satisfy a customer in a meeting.”

Then comes the personal bit: “Followed by a relaxing dinner with my wife.”

By jennifer@chinadailyhk.com 

Vish Iyer
President of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Asia Pacific

Career Milestones:
2010: Becomes president of TCS Asia Pacific
2008: Serves as CFO of global business operations at TCS
2006: Takes up post as head of corporate strategy at TCS
1996: Becomes director of corporate development at IBM Global Services
1991: Joins Tata Elxsi as executive vice-president

QUICK TAKES:
Hobbies:
Playing golf. The question is not how well you play but whether you enjoy the time. Whatever I do, I enjoy. It’s a great opportunity to meet people.
Business philosophy:
I always believe in ... simple communication with the customer and the employee. There is no point promising things that you cannot deliver. Whatever you promise, you deliver. Whatever you don’t deliver, you don’t promise.
If you were to do one thing differently in life?
I can’t think of one thing. I do things that I enjoy doing.
How to kill time on the road:
I spend a lot of time watching movies on the plane. My favorite stars are Jackie Chan and Amitabh Bachchan, who hosted India’s version of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Born: December 8 in a Year of the Snake

IBM on solid ground

IBM, the world’s largest technology services company, reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that beat estimates on the back of growth in emerging markets.

It gave a better-than-expected 2013 outlook after a solid fourth quarter that analysts say has more to do with Big Blue's smooth execution than a vibrant tech spending environment.

Companies had been widely expected to hold back on IT purchases in December in part because of worries about the so-called US fiscal cliff.

Automatic tax increases and spending cuts would have been triggered had Congress not made a deal to avert the cliff and could have pushed the weak US economy into recession.

But IBM said on Tuesday that its quarterly results beat forecasts and it planned to achieve earnings of at least US$16.70 a share for the full year, above analysts' consensus forecast of US$16.57.
.
While some analysts said IBM's earnings might be a sign of an improved tech spending environment, others said the strong results were specific to IBM's business model.

“IBM is better positioned in a tough environment than most tech companies are,” said Cindy Shaw, managing director at Discern.

IBM made a bold strategic move a decade ago when it bought PriceWaterhouse's consulting business and then decided to exit the PC business, betting its future was in finding solutions to business problems with the help of software and technology.

That strategy appears to have paid off.

“What IBM does better than anyone, with the exception of Accenture, is solving problems and I am not talking about taking out some costs, but really driving revenue,” Shaw said.

In addition, she said, IBM was strong in “hot growth markets” such as data analytics, cloud computing, emerging markets and what IBM calls smarter planet, which aims to improve areas such as traffic, power grids and food production.

Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu agreed, saying the success appeared to be more specific to IBM than the industry in general.

“The results show that the IBM advantage and business model vertical integration of hardware and software is difficult to replicate,” he said.

“IBM has been doing this the longest and customers are very accustomed to it. They have a much stronger offering and brand name.”

As a result quarterly net income rose 10% to US$6.1bil, or US$5.39 a share from US$4.71 a year earlier. Revenue dropped 1% to US$29.3bil due to the sale of its retail business in the third quarter.

Analysts had expected the Armonk, New York-based company to report net income of US$5.95bil, or US$5.25 a share, on revenue of US$29.05bil, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue grew in particular because of an 11% increase in IBM's growth markets in Brazil, India, Russia and China.

Software revenue was up 3% in the quarter. Reuters

Some analysts said IBM's better than expected results were a sign that tech spending might not have been as bleak as expected.

”It is better than what people had feared,” said Brian Marshall, an analyst at ISI Group.

”Virtually every segment did a little bit better than people expected. It supports the fact that things are getting better out there at least from a tech industry standpoint.”

Andrew Bartels, an analyst with research firm Forrester Research, said: “We were expecting a lot of companies were sitting on their wallets until it became clear what was going to become of the fiscal cliff.

”Given the fact it's Q4 with a cloud of the fiscal cliff, it's a positive indication that tech software will be doing better in the next couple of months.”

IBM shares rose more than 4 percent to $204.50 after closing at $196.08 on the New York Stock Exchange.- Reuters  

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Innovation not the same as invention, the difference here...

Innovation practitioners know that they should not listen to the experts who approach life with rigid blinkers that prevent them from visualising anything outside their conditioned minds.

TAKING a leaf out of what our Prime Minister wrote in this space two weeks ago, innovative thinking is undoubtedly a significant driver in propelling the nation’s economy to new heights. It is imperative that Malaysians embrace a culture of innovation.

But let’s take a step or two back, before we can begin to move forward. It is important to pin down exactly what innovation means. Several readers have asked me if innovation is the same as invention, especially after reading about Malaysian researchers winning awards for their inventions. In fact, although they may appear similar at first glance, upon closer inspection both are very different indeed.

If you make something unique or original, that’s an invention. Whether the invention has value or not is immaterial. This is why we see whacky inventions like toothbrushes for dogs or a clip-on fan on chopsticks to cool down noodles. Both these examples are unique and original but offer little value to most citizens.

Innovation demands creating additional value, even though a product or service may not be unique or original. The innovator must first unravel customer needs, and then figure out how to inject greater value at different parts of the solution. Let’s look at two examples.

Forty-five years ago, the radical economist and philosopher E.F. Schumacher formed an NGO called Practical Action to help people in developing countries help themselves. Practical Action states that more than 1.6 million people in developing countries die of diseases and accidents caused by cooking and heating fires in homes. This is not surprising, given that one third of humanity still uses rudimentary stoves fuelled by wood, charcoal or dung.

Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is a viable solution as it costs less than wood or charcoal, but most villagers cannot afford the stoves. Some African countries have implemented an innovative “revolving fund” credit system that allows villagers to buy stoves. It works exactly like the “kutu” scheme prevalent in Malaysia for decades, although illegally. Ten households get together and form a fund, with each household contributing a fixed amount to the fund each month, for 10 months.

Every month, one household collects the contributions that month to buy a stove. The following month, another household gets the total contributions to buy their stove. Households draw lots to see who will get the fund over the next 10 months. Within 10 months, all 10 households get their LPG stove. Now imagine adapting this idea to meet the needs of entire communities and you see the power of this innovative funding system. No handouts or subsidies from the government and no bank loans either – the villagers help themselves, through innovation. This is a common sense solution, not rocket science. To be precise, this is innovation.

Let’s look at the second example. Does the number of new books that hit the bookshelves every month overwhelm you? It was predicted that the Internet would spell the death of the printed word, but in fact the reverse has happened. There are now more books in print than at any other time in history. How does one keep up?

As it is commonly known, a number of innovative online companies have found a practical solution to this. For a small fee, these companies provide a short summary of a book containing all the essential ideas presented in the book. Most people can read these summaries in 15 minutes, making it possible to read at least one book each day. This “compressed knowledge” is another example of innovation.

Ultimately, innovation is not confined to technologies, products or services. You can have innovation at every stage of the business cycle – from manufacturing to distribution to sales to post-sales support.

Just look at Nike, the world’s largest supplier of athletic shoes and apparel. It does not own a single manufacturing factory, but focuses on innovation in design and marketing. Another well-known example is DHL, a world-leading courier and logistics company that relies on innovation to accurately ship a document or parcel from the point of origin to its destination.

For you to benefit and profit from innovation, you have to dissect your business or activity into its key pieces or “parts”. The “eco-system” must be correctly identified, as dealing with just one part of the problem or value-chain is unlikely to bring satisfactory results. Nothing exists in isolation and even seemingly unconnected things are actually connected, so a “village” or holistic approach to innovation is necessary.

For each piece or part, you have to ask a fundamental question: How can I do this better, so that the outcome is greater than it is now – at a lower cost? Your brain will rebel at first and tell you that it cannot be done. Don’t listen to your brain; it is a lazy device looking for the easiest way out. Innovation practitioners know that the last person you should listen to is your own self. Don’t listen to the experts either, for they approach life with rigid blinkers that prevent them from visualising anything outside their conditioned minds.

Adopt a child-like disposition and question the assumptions that you and others have taken for granted. Persist until you have questioned each and every aspect of all the pieces of the puzzle and found answers that are uncommon.

This sounds easy, but it is the most difficult step as it questions all the sacred cows lurking in your belief system. Done correctly, however, it can lead to breakthrough innovations.
If you have been through this process, share your stories with me at kamal@pmo.gov.my so that other readers can benefit from your lessons too.

The Star Ignite
By DATUK SERI DR KAMAL JIT SINGH

> Unit Inovasi Khas CEO Datuk Seri Dr Kamal Jit Singh is hoping to jolt Malaysians out of complacency.

 

The Difference Between 'Invention' and 'Innovation'

Two and a half years ago, I co-founded Stroome, a collaborative online video editing and publishing platform and 2010 Knight News Challenge winner.

From its inception, the site received a tremendous amount of attention. The New School, USC Annenberg, the Online News Association and, ultimately, the Knight Foundation all saw something interesting in what we were doing. We won awards; we were invited to present at conferences; we were written about in the trades and featured in over 150 blogs. Yet despite all the accolades, not once did the word "invention" creep in. "Innovation," it turns out, was the word on everyone's lips.

Like so many up-and-coming entrepreneurs, I was under the impression that invention and innovation were one and the same. They aren't. And, as I have discovered, the distinction is an important one.

Recently, I was asked by Jason Nazar, founder of Docstoc and a big supporter of the L.A. entrepreneurial community, if I would help define the difference between the two. A short, 3-minute video response can be found at the bottom of this post, but I thought I'd share some key takeaways with you here:

INVENTION VS. INNOVATION: THE DIFFERENCE

In its purest sense, "invention" can be defined as the creation of a product or introduction of a process for the first time. "Innovation," on the other hand, occurs if someone improves on or makes a significant contribution to an existing product, process or service.

Consider the microprocessor. Someone invented the microprocessor. But by itself, the microprocessor was nothing more than another piece on the circuit board. It's what was done with that piece -- the hundreds of thousands of products, processes and services that evolved from the invention of the microprocessor -- that required innovation.

STEVE JOBS: THE POSTER BOY OF INNOVATION

If ever there were a poster child for innovation it would be former Apple CEO Steve Jobs. And when people talk about innovation, Jobs' iPod is cited as an example of innovation at its best.

But let's take a step back for a minute. The iPod wasn't the first portable music device (Sony popularized the "music anywhere, anytime" concept 22 years earlier with the Walkman); the iPod wasn't the first device that put hundreds of songs in your pocket (dozens of manufacturers had MP3 devices on the market when the iPod was released in 2001); and Apple was actually late to the party when it came to providing an online music-sharing platform. (Napster, Grokster and Kazaa all preceded iTunes.)

So, given those sobering facts, is the iPod's distinction as a defining example of innovation warranted? Absolutely.

What made the iPod and the music ecosystem it engendered innovative wasn't that it was the first portable music device. It wasn't that it was the first MP3 player. And it wasn't that it was the first company to make thousands of songs immediately available to millions of users. What made Apple innovative was that it combined all of these elements -- design, ergonomics and ease of use -- in a single device, and then tied it directly into a platform that effortlessly kept that device updated with music.

Apple invented nothing. Its innovation was creating an easy-to-use ecosystem that unified music discovery, delivery and device. And, in the process, they revolutionized the music industry.

IBM: INNOVATION'S UGLY STEPCHILD

 Admittedly, when it comes to corporate culture, Apple and IBM are worlds apart. But Apple and IBM aren't really as different as innovation's poster boy would have had us believe.

Truth is if it hadn't been for one of IBM's greatest innovations -- the personal computer -- there would have been no Apple. Jobs owes a lot to the introduction of the PC. And IBM was the company behind it.

Ironically, the IBM PC didn't contain any new inventions per se (see iPod example above). Under pressure to complete the project in less than 18 months, the team actually was under explicit instructions not to invent anything new. The goal of the first PC, code-named "Project Chess," was to take off-the-shelf components and bring them together in a way that was user friendly, inexpensive, and powerful.

And while the world's first PC was an innovative product in the aggregate, the device they created -- a portable device that put powerful computing in the hands of the people -- was no less impactful than Henry Ford's Model T, which reinvented the automobile industry by putting affordable transportation in the hands of the masses.

INNOVATION ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH

Given the choice to invent or innovate, most entrepreneurs would take the latter. Let's face it, innovation is just sexier. Perhaps there are a few engineers at M.I.T. who can name the members of "Project Chess." Virtually everyone on the planet knows who Steve Jobs is.

But innovation alone isn't enough. Too often, companies focus on a technology instead of the customer's problem. But in order to truly turn a great idea into a world-changing innovation, other factors must be taken into account.

According to Venkatakrishnan Balasubramanian, a research analyst with Infosys Labs, the key to ensuring that innovation is successful is aligning your idea with the strategic objectives and business models of your organization.

In a recent article that appeared in Innovation Management, he offered five considerations:

1. Competitive advantage: Your innovation should provide a unique competitive position for the enterprise in the marketplace;
2. Business alignment: The differentiating factors of your innovation should be conceptualized around the key strategic focus of the enterprise and its goals;
3. Customers: Knowing the customers who will benefit from your innovation is paramount;
4. Execution: Identifying resources, processes, risks, partners and suppliers and the ecosystem in the market for succeeding in the innovation is equally important;
5. Business value: Assessing the value (monetary, market size, etc.) of the innovation and how the idea will bring that value into the organization is a critical underlying factor in selecting which idea to pursue.

Said another way, smart innovators frame their ideas to stress the ways in which a new concept is compatible with the existing market landscape, and their company's place in that marketplace.

This adherence to the "status quo" may sound completely antithetical to the concept of innovation. But an idea that requires too much change in an organization, or too much disruption to the marketplace, may never see the light of day.

A FINAL THOUGHT

While they tend to be lumped together, "invention" and "innovation" are not the same thing. There are distinctions between them, and those distinctions are important.

So how do you know if you are inventing or innovating? Consider this analogy:

If invention is a pebble tossed in the pond, innovation is the rippling effect that pebble causes. Someone has to toss the pebble. That's the inventor. Someone has to recognize the ripple will eventually become a wave. That's the entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs don't stop at the water's edge. They watch the ripples and spot the next big wave before it happens. And it's the act of anticipating and riding that "next big wave" that drives the innovative nature in every entrepreneur.

By Tom Grasty This article is the seventh of 10 video segments in which digital entrepreneur Tom Grasty talks about his experience building an Internet startup, and is part of a larger initiative sponsored by docstoc.videos, which features advice from small business owners who offer their views on how to launch a new business or grow your existing one altogether.

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IBM scientists take image of atomic bonds

How’s this for a close-up: an image that can differentiate between the different chemical bonds in an individual molecule? That’s what IBM’s Zurich research lab is claiming in a paper published in Science.

The paywalled piece is titled with the pizazz typical of science papers – Bond-Order Discrimination by Atomic Force Microscopy – but it’s worth browsing because the image is so cool.

IBM's image of a nanographene molecule: the bonds at the centre involve more electrons and are shorter than those at the edge. Image: IBM

Created with an atomic force microscope (AFM), the image shows a nanographene molecule and clearly visualises the bonds in the molecule, showing different lengths of bonds. The scientists say the imaging technique will help them characterise graphene, the wonderstuff of developments in electronics.

"This can increase basic understanding at the level of individual molecules ... in particular, the relaxation of bonds around defects in graphene as well as the changing of bonds in chemical reactions and in excited states were observed", IBM says.

To quote IBM scientist Leo Gross from its announcement: "We found two different contrast mechanisms to distinguish bonds. The first one is based on small differences in the force measured above the bonds. We expected this kind of contrast but it was a challenge to resolve.”

"The second contrast mechanism really came as a surprise: bonds appeared with different lengths in AFM measurements. With the help of ab initio calculations we found that the tilting of the carbon monoxide molecule at the tip apex is the cause of this contrast.”

The AFM uses a single carbon monoxide molecule as the sensing tip. The molecule oscillates above the sample to measure the forces between the CO molecule and the sample to create the image.

Update: The original version of this story identified the image as showing C₆₀. That has now been corrected. IBM imaged both nanographene and C₆₀ "buckyballs". There are more images on Flickr, here

By Richard Chirgwin

Newscribe : get free news in real time 

Related stories:

• IBM tells electrons to strictly come dancing in spintronics first (13 August 2012)
• IBM carbon probe views electron movement in molecule (27 February 2012)
• IBM boffins claim phase change memory breakthrough (30 June 2011)
• IBM makes superdense magnetic Lazarus (16 May 2006)

The rising K-economy in Asia

HOW big is the impact of the Internet potential on Asia, including the impact on development of the knowledge economy in Asia?

We all have a sense that the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry has transformed social media, education and the way business is done. But we are not sure what is the best way to use the Knowledge economy to propel our future growth.

In 1973, American sociologist Daniel Bell predicted the arrival of the Post-Industrial Society by 2000 with a world dominated by service industry, high value professional and technical employment and innovation driven by scientific research.

In 2000, the number of global Internet users was only 360 million, rising to 2.3 trillion with an annual growth rate of 528% between 2000-2011, of which 45% reside in Asia. The highest penetration of Internet is in North America (78.6%), whereas penetration in Asia is only 26.2%, pointing towards huge potential for Asian growth.

According to Internet World Statistics, the top Internet country in Asia is China, with 513 million users, followed by India (121 million), Japan (101 million) and Indonesia (55 million).

Within Asia, the highest penetration is South Korea (82.7%), Japan (80%), Singapore (77.2%), Taiwan (70%) and Hong Kong (68.7%). China has 38.4% Internet penetration.

However, the highest number of Facebook users in Asia is India (45 million), Indonesia (43 million) and the Philippines (27 million). Asia has 195 million Facebook users as at March 2012, or 23.3% of 835 million worldwide, compared to 44.8% penetration in Internet usage. The reason is of course Facebook is not used in China, but even then, there are 447,000 recorded users, less than the number in Cambodia (449,000).

Did you realise that 26.8% of Internet users are English-speaking (565 million), and 24.2% are Chinese speaking (510 million). The third most important language is Spanish (165 million). The Malay language, which is common to Indonesia and Malaysia, is not counted yet among the top 10 languages, mainly because the penetration of the Internet in Indonesia (245 million people) is only 22.4%.

Malaysia has a web usage rate of 61%, with over 17 million people online. The Post-Industrial Society has already arrived in the advanced countries, with the service sector accounting for 76.7% of US GDP, compared with only 1.2% for agriculture and 22.1% in industry. Employment in the service sector already accounted for 77% of total employment in the United States, with the increase in the service sector employment driving employment growth in the coming years.

Within the service sector, three sectors - education services, healthcare and professional and business services (all knowledge industries) are expected to grow at double the speed of employment of the US employment as a whole. In contrast, manufacturing employment is only 10% of total employment in the United States, compared with 28% employed in manufacturing in China. But the service sector in China accounts for only 43% of GDP, compared with 55.2% for India.

What is the relationship between information, knowledge and value creation?

In 1991, one of the pioneers on information theory, Robert Lucky, argued that the information value chain is a pyramid, with the bottom data having no value, classified data becoming valued information, with applied knowledge (technology) having more value, and wisdom, the highest value, being learnt, experienced and useful not only to understand but perhaps predict events.

What the Internet revolution has achieved is to distribute information and knowledge very quickly to the masses across the world. Indeed, the main benefit of the Internet is that it broke down “silos” of specialised information and data that could be shared and used by everyone with access to it.

Indeed, the Internet has enabled “Wiki-knowledge production”, which has produced a huge public good, available to all, with free input by thousands of anonymous volunteers. Public goods are no longer produced by governments, universities or firms, but by the collaboration of thousands of empowered individuals.

There is no doubt that as Asia ponders its own Post-Industrial Society, how it adapts to the new knowledge economy will make a difference between future success or failure.

Leading economies like Singapore and South Korea have devoted tremendous resources into education, research and development in key areas. South Korea even revived its Five-Year Plans to transform itself into a high growth, high knowledge green economy.

Both the Chinese and Indian 12th Five-Year Plans have ambitions to become creative and innovative economies.

In this regard, it is useful to compare and contrast the IBM way towards innovation and value creation versus the Indian approach. In the IBM book Making the World Better (2011), it uses a methodology insiders call SMUBA, an acronym for Seeing, Mapping, Understanding, Believing and Acting.

It is a process to master complex systems and to move from data, analytics and implementation.

Multinationals like IBM now realise that it is impossible to innovate alone by having centralised research laboraties the work is shared and done through key research labs spread throughout the world, through connecting research to product development, academic and government collaboration, internal collaboration across departments and labs, collaboration with clients, innovation by acquisition and open innovation.

In contrast, the Indian model of innovation and value creation is distinct in three ways producing frugal, affordable solutions for the masses without compromising quality, innovation in organisational and process models that improve quality and service delivery, and innovations in the process of innovation (frugal cost solutions through frugal cost of innovation).

The race is already on to produce Asian multinationals and create products to compete with Apple, Amazon, Google or Facebook.

The setback that Samsung faced recently will probably accelerate that process of innovation and competition across Asia.

THINK ASIAN By ANDREW SHENG

Tan Sri Andrew Sheng is president of Fung Global Institute.

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US Stocks dominate; Korean share drops after US's ruling on Apple-Samsung patent wars

US ascends in biggest stocks as Google, Apple oust Gazprom

Shares of Apple have hit new record highs after the company won its patent lawsuit against Samsung, but overall stocks traded mixed.

• Image Credit: AP
• Apple Inc., International Business Machines Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and four more US companies joined the top 20 since stocks peaked in 2007, bringing the total to 14, according to data compiled by Bloomberg

New York: American stocks are dominating global equities by the most in a decade, taking a majority of the spots in a ranking of the 20 biggest companies, after earnings rose faster than the rest of the world as the global economy rebounded.

Apple Inc., International Business Machines Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and four more US companies joined the top 20 since stocks peaked in 2007, bringing the total to 14, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. They replaced Moscow-based Gazprom OAO, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. in Beijing, Petroleo Brasileiro SA of Rio de Janeiro and six others from Europe and Asia. Of the nine added, only BHP Billiton Ltd. and Nestle SA are based outside the US.

More US corporations are represented than any time since 2003 after 10 quarters of economic expansion and profit growth lifted the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index 109 per cent since shares bottomed in March 2009. The shift reflects volatility in emerging markets and shows how innovation builds value in the US.

“The US is just the best place on the planet to have a great idea and turn it into a big business,” according to Michael Shaoul, chairman of New York-based Marketfield Asset Management, which oversees $2.7 billion (Dh9.9 billion).

“There’s another reason for this list to have shifted and that is the falling of prior darlings,” Shaoul said. “A lot of the ones which have fallen are energy and emerging-market related.”

Reasons for strength

American companies are gaining strength in part because of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. While the S&P 500 fell 0.5 per cent last week to 1,411.13, retreating from a four-year high, amid concern European leaders will fail to preserve the 17-nation currency union, the Euro Stoxx 50 Index slid 1.5 per cent. S&P 500 futures added 0.1 per cent to 1,410.6 at 8.52am in London on Monday.

Computer and software makers became the top industry in the S&P 500, overtaking financial companies, as Apple and IBM joined Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. among the biggest stocks. The last time a non-US technology producer made the global ranking was in 2001, when Finland-based Nokia Oyj was the world’s largest mobile phone maker. Nokia’s market value has fallen by 92 per cent since Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007.

The Cupertino, California-based maker of iPad computers last week became the most valuable US company ever as the stock rose to $668.87 on August 22, giving the company a value of $627 billion. Apple, which approached bankruptcy in 1997, has jumped more than 80-fold in the past decade.

IBM’s market value more than doubled over the decade as the company shifted its strategy toward more profitable software sales and away from hardware and consulting. The New York-based company, with a market capitalisation of $226 billion, closed the gap with Microsoft, valued at $256.2 billion, to become the No. 3 technology maker and the world’s seventh-biggest company.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, was worth four times as much as IBM in 1999. Mountain View, California-based Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, is valued at $222.6 billion.

No match to Apple, Google

“There are not a lot of other companies that can compete with the Googles and the Apples of the world,” Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg, Florida, said. “We have probably the most cutting-edge companies in the technology space that exist today. Who can match Apple? I can’t think of anybody.”

Computer and software makers represent 20 per cent of the S&P 500. The industry’s weighting outside the US is 4 per cent, as measured by the MSCI World ex-US Index.

Profit growth drove the US gains. The 14 biggest US companies earned $248.4 billion in the last 12 months, more than double the total made by the 67 companies in Brazil’s Bovespa Index. Their market value reached $3.57 trillion, about the size of Germany’s 2011 gross domestic product.

Earnings at the seven newly added American companies surged 40 per cent during the past four years, while income for the 13 non-US firms that made the 2007 list rose 6 per cent, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The ranking reflects the US economy, where growth climbed back toward pre-2008 levels faster than other countries. Gross domestic product is forecast to gain 2.2 per cent this year, according to the median estimate of 78 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That compares with an average of 2.6 per cent between 2002 and 2007, before the credit crisis, the data show.

Growth declines elsewhere

China is projected to expand by 8.1 per cent, compared with its mean rate of 11.2 per cent before the global recession. Brazil’s GDP may increase 1.9 per cent, down from an average of 3.8 per cent. Russia may grow by 3.8 per cent, next to 7.1 per cent in the five years before the credit crisis.

“People perceive not only better growth for the US, but also less risk,” Chris Leavy, the chief investment officer of fundamental equities at New York-based BlackRock Inc., which oversees $3.56 trillion as the world’s biggest money manager, said in an August 22 interview.

Investors are demanding more profit to reward companies with higher stock prices than before the credit crisis shattered confidence in equities. The average capitalisation of the largest 20 companies shrunk 17 per cent to $242.5 billion since 2007 even as profits surged almost fourfold to $18.8 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The biggest companies, dominated in 2007 by commodity explorers and enterprises controlled by China’s government, traded at an average price-earnings ratio of 57.6, the data show. Today, after the addition of two American technology developers and a California bank, the average valuation is 12.9, according to the data.

“It’s so commonplace in this country to vilify corporations, but the truth is the American corporate structure has worked very well,” David Kelly, chief market strategist at JPMorgan Funds in New York, said in an August 22 phone interview. His firm oversees about $348 billion. “There are other countries which are doing very well economically, but don’t do as good a job as inventing and reinventing themselves.”

The S&P 500 trailed the rest of the world in the previous bull market as accelerating growth in China boosted demand for commodities from Brazil to Russia. The index rose 99 per cent during the five-year rally that ended in October 2007, lagging behind a 187 per cent gain by the MSCI World ex-US Index and a 416 per cent surge in an MSCI gauge tracking 21 emerging markets. - Bloomberg

Samsung share price drops on Apple patent ruling

How South Koreans view Samsung ruling

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW The share price of Samsung Electronics dropped nearly 7.5% in trading Monday
• Comes after a California jury awarded Apple $1.05 billion in a patent dispute with Samsung
• The tumble erased about $12 billion from the South Korean electronics giant's market value

(CNN) -- The share price of Samsung Electronics dropped nearly 7.5% in trading Monday as investors had their first opportunity to react to the more than $1 billion decision against the Korean electronics giant by a California jury for infringing on Apple patents.

Samsung dropped 6.3% at the open of South Korea's Kospi index and finished the day down 7.45%, after dropping as much as 7.7%. The tumble erased about $12 billion from the company's market value Monday.

Samsung is planning to appeal Friday's decision of a U.S. federal jury which awarded Apple $1.05 billion for copying the look and feel of iPhones and iPad design. The jury rejected Samsung's counterclaims against Apple.

A senior Samsung executive told the Korea Times the decision was "absolutely the worst scenario for us" as he was heading into an emergency meeting at the company's Seoul headquarters on Sunday.

The decision could lead to the prohibition of sales in the U.S. of Samsung smarphones and computer tablets found to have violated Apple's patents. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for September 20.

Apple vs. Samsung: Tale of two countries

CNNMoney: What the Apple-Samsung verdict means for your smartphone

"As far as the money damages are concerned, (Samsung) will make that up in the long run. The bigger issue at the moment them having to come up with new and unique designs appealing to the customer base," said Christopher Carani, chairman of the design rights committee of the American Bar Association.

"It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices," Samsung said in a written statement after Friday's decision. "It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies."

Apple, meanwhile, praised the court for "sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn't right."

"The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung's copying went far deeper than even we knew," the company said in a statement.

A nine-person jury spent just two and a half days puzzling out its final verdict, with weeks of notes and memories of testimony, 109 pages of jury instructions, and boxes of evidence including a collection of contested smartphones and tablets as their guide.

The jury award shows the growing importance of design for electronics makers. In 2001, Apple and Samsung were awarded 10 and eight U.S. design patents, respectively. This year, Apple could have as many as 333 design patents approved, while Samsung could have as many as 500, Carani said.

"Central to the U.S. case and at its very core was design rights, the way things look, and that's really where the large amount of this billion-dollar damages judgment comes from," Carani said.

The lawsuit is the largest yet in the ongoing worldwide patent brawl between the two companies, which itself is just one battle in Apple's war against Google's Android mobile operating system. On Friday, a South Korean court found that both parties had infringed on each other's patents, banning the sale of the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, two iPad models and Samsung's Galaxy S2.

The Korean court ordered Apple to pay Samsung $35,000 and Samsung to pay Apple $22,000.

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HP on More Layoffs!

Hewlett Packard, CEO, Meg Whitman may announce a major layoff with next Wednesday’s earnings call when she also details a company restructuring plan. Whitman could eliminate 30,000 workers out of a total of 325,000 or 9% of the workforce. Whitman is repositioning the company away from PCs as smartphones and tablets displace desktop computers. HP may add to sales, product development and R&D. The New York Times reported the news.

Stop the Bleeding

HP needs innovation to staunch the slide in revenues and profits. Revenues could decline 4% to $122 billion this year from $127 billion in 2011.

Aggressive cost cutting by former CEO Mark Hurd may have disadvantaged the company by reducing products in the pipeline. Then, major acquisitions by Whitman’s immediate predecessor, Leo Apotheker, who was with the firm for less than a year, reduced the cash hoard but did not contribute to financial performance and earnings fell sharply. HP spent $40 billion in acquisitions over four years, but was not able to monetize them.

HP has mature product lines in decline. It dominates in PCs that face dwindling demand, margin pressure and intense competition from Asian suppliers. HP also dominates in printers, which generate cash but are fading. About 75% the services business is tied to printers, so that baby goes out with the bathwater. HP may combine the PC and printer units. HP does not play in smart phones and tablets.

Cheap and Getting Cheaper

HP has the lowest valuation of the large cap technology companies. Competitors Cisco, IBM and Oracle have market capitalizations of about 2.3 times revenues, but HP’s market cap is one-fourth its revenues. HP invests less in R&D than its rivals. On the average, Cisco, IBM and Oracle invest about 9% of revenues in R&D while HP invests 2%.

Unlike its competitors that have a vertical integration strategy, HP partners with Microsoft for operating software and with Intel for processors. Investors do not consider Microsoft and Intel to be innovators. Because HP does not control all the processes, it is slow to adopt new technologies. More than a decade ago, HP announced a vision to integrate all the entertainment devices in the home, including the PC and TV. But Apple made the vision a reality, not HP.

Tough Competition

In the consumer market, Apple and Google have the majority of share in smartphones and tablets. Apple leveraged  its iOS operating system that allows devices to synch up and interplay to lock customers into the brand. Apple controls the software, microprocessor design and manufacturing. The vertical integration allows it to beat rivals with advanced technologies.

Competitors have blocked the enterprise too. IBM trumped HP in consulting, security and systems management. Oracle beat HP in software, like big data, storage and analytics. And, Cisco controls networking and cloud gear. What is left?

About her plans, Whitman said in BusinessWeek in March that “We need to move quickly to capture emerging opportunities in areas like cloud, security, and information management,” Whitman continued. “We’ve already assembled some formidable assets. Now we need to align our portfolio to deliver a new generation of capabilities. We see a once-in-a-generation chance to define the future of technology and position HP as a leader for decades to come.”

By Susan Kalla, Forbes Contributor

 

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Google's latest wheeze: Work out these blurry house numbers for us

Google, the pride of open everything, uses real blurry house number images as its Captchas, so that the general public can tell them what the number really is.

An openly available image of Sergey Brin in the open air.

(Credit: Google+,Sergey Brin)

 

I have spent much of the day blurry-eyed, moved by Google's Sergey Brin declaring his company the only great defender of the open Web.

The tears have, it has come to my attention, mainly emerged from laughter at Google's sweet, thoughtful gall that everything it claims the world desires just happens coincidentally to benefit it commercially.

Still, no sooner had my eyes dried a little when the Telegraph offered me Google' latest exemplar of sheer, beautiful openness.

For it seems that Google is using real images from Street View as security checks. Yes, if you want to access your own Google account, the company is asking you to decipher a slightly blurry image of a real house number.

It seems that if enough people decide on a particular number, then Google sharpens up the image on Street View.

Yes, you are being asked to work for Google, Openly. For free. And if you don't, well, you may not be able to access your own Google account.

The Telegraph naturally declares that certain privacy groups are foaming at the lips on hearing of this little scheme -- which, according to a Google spokesman, only occurs in 10 percent of security questions.

But surely some people, on hearing of this and Google being fined $25,000 by the FCC for, um, non-compliance with its inquiry into Wi-Fi eavesdropping, might feel that openness has a highly subjective definition in Google's complex collective cranium.

Google's version of the open Web seems very simple: let us get at everything. Whether it's books, streets, houses, Facebook accounts, iPhoto accumulations or perhaps even the remains of your spaghetti bolognese.

Something is open if Google can see it and scrape it. And when Google sees it and scrapes it, it can create a fuller picture of every element of your life -- just in case, you know, some lonely advertiser might pass by and show interest.

Some might call this freedom. There again, doesn't freedom sometimes entail being free not to let rapacious, baby-faced organizations peer into your life?

by Chris Matyszczyk 
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.
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IBM takes giant step to faster, quantum computers

IBM researchers presenting the results at this week’s American Physical Society meeting in Boston said that quantum computing “has the potential to deliver computational power that is unrivaled by any supercomputer today.” – Reuters File Photo

WASHINGTON: IBM researchers have taken a leap in computing by using quantum mechanics to harness the power of atoms and molecules, a move likely to lead to vast increases in speed and security of computers and other devices.

IBM researchers presenting the results at this week’s American Physical Society meeting in Boston said that quantum computing “has the potential to deliver computational power that is unrivaled by any supercomputer today.” The new type of computing uses information encoded into quantum bits or qubits, putting into use a theory that scientists have been discussing for decades.

“The special properties of qubits will allow quantum computers to work on millions of computations at once, while desktop PCs can typically handle minimal simultaneous computations,” an IBM statement said.

“For example, a single 250-qubit state contains more bits of information than there are atoms in the universe.” “The quantum computing work we are doing shows it is no longer just a brute force physics experiment,” said IBM scientist Matthias Steffen, manager of the research team that is working on applications for quantum computing systems.

“It’s time to start creating systems based on this science that will take computing to a new frontier.” Quantum computing expands on the most basic piece of information that a typical computer understands — a bit. While a normal bit can have only one of two values: “1” or “0,” qubits can hold a value of “1” or “0” as well as both values at the same time.

“Described as superposition, this is what allows quantum computers to perform millions of calculations at once,” IBM says.

A problem for scientists is that qubits have a short life of several billionths of a second, but IBM has succeeded in developing “three dimensional” superconducting qubits which retain their quantum states up to 100 microseconds – an improvement of two to four times prior records.

“Based on this progress, optimism about superconducting qubits and the possibilities for a future quantum computer are rapidly growing,” says IBM.

To harness the power of quantum computing, scientists have had to work to minimize errors in calculations caused by interference from factors such as heat, electromagnetic radiation, and materials defects.

The use of quantum computing “will have widespread implications foremost for the field of data encryption where quantum computers could factor very large numbers like those used to decode and encode sensitive information,” IBM said.

“Other potential applications for quantum computing may include searching databases of unstructured information, performing a range of optimization tasks and solving previously unsolvable mathematical problems.”

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IBM's New Optochip Transfers One Trillion Bits Per Second

By Alex Knapp, Forbes Staff

The Holey Optochip (Credit: IBM Research)

As Big Data increasingly becomes a part of our economy bandwidth becomes increasingly important. Not just wired or wireless bandwidth, either. When it comes to server racks and supercomputers, the internal bandwidth within a computer also matters a lot more.

IBM has made a big step forward in improving that bandwidth with their announcement today that they’ve developed a parallel optical transceiver – dubbed the “Holey Optochip” – that’s capable of transferring information at the rate of one trillion bits per second. That’s eight times faster than currently available optical components.

“We’re trying to deliver a component that looks like an electrical chip,” IBM researcher Clint Schow told me on the phone yesterday. “But it also had to be dense, compact, and power efficient. We were also focused on delivering it with components available today.”

IBM Paves The Way Towards Scalable Quantum Computing Alex Knapp Forbes Staff

For the prototype optochip, the IBM research team drilled 48 holes in a conventional 90nm CMOS chip, which then allowed for the placement of 24 receiver and 24 transmitter channels within the chip. Because it’s so compact, the chip is incredibly power efficient – it consumes less than five watts. And by using a standard CMOS chip, they’re able to bring the interconnects as close to the processors as possible, which allows for its incredible transfer speeds.

IBM’s next step will be to work with commercial partners to further refine and develop the chip. Even though the current iteration is only a prototype, Schow is confident that the development cycle for commercial applications will be short. That’s because all of the individual components of the chip are readily available, and the modifications can be performed without customized equipment.

“Part of the real advantage of this chip is that we put it together by using small tweaks in clever ways,” he said.

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Related post:
IBM Scalable Quantum Computing

IBM Scalable Quantum Computing

IBM Paves The Way Towards Scalable Quantum Computing

Alex Knapp, Forbes Staff

Three superconducting qubits. (Credit: IBM Research)

IBM has announced today that it’s achieved a breakthrough in its work to develop scalable quantum computing by developing a superconducting qubit made from microfabricated silicon that maintains coherence long enough for practical computation.

And now that I’ve thrown a ton of information at you in one tiny sentence, let’s break it all down. I had a chance to talk with IBM scientist Matthias Steffen about this new technology, and he broke it down for me. Let’s start with the qubit. Classical computing, as you probably know, is based on the bit. A bit can exist in one of two possible states, which are typically referred to as “0″ or “1″. A qubit is the equivalent of a bit for quantum computing. It can be in three possible states – “0″ or “1″ or both. The “both” state is known as the superposition. Now, the difference may seem subtle, but mathematically, it’s huge. A few hundred qubits can contain more classical bits of information than the the universe has atoms.

IBM Shrinks Computer Memory Into Only Twelve Atoms
  Alex Knapp Forbes Staff
 
What makes quantum computing challenging is the problem of decoherence. When a qubit is moved from the 0 state to either 1 or the superposition, it will decohere to state 0 due to interference from other parts of the computer. In order for quantum computing to be scalable and practical, the qubits have to be coherent for a long enough time that error-correction techniques can be employed to make sure that the decoherence doesn’t prevent accurate computation.

“In 1999, coherence times were about 1 nanosecond,” Steffen told me. “Last year, coherence times were achieved for as long as 1 to 4 microseconds. With these new techniques, we’ve achieved coherence times of 10 to 100 microseconds. We need to improve that by a factor of 10 to 100 before we’re at the threshold we want to be. But considering that in the past ten years we’ve increased coherence times by a factor of 10,000, I’m not scared.”

 

Alex Knapp Forbes Staff
 MIT's Scott Aaronson Explains Quantum Computing

The IBM team has taken two approaches to quantum computing, both of which factor into the breakthroughs announced here. The first approach is building a 3-D qubit made from superconducting, microfabricated silicon. Steffen notes that the benefit of using silicon for these qubits is that the manufacturing equipment and know-how already exists – new techniques don’t have to be developed. 3-D qubits were pioneered by the Schoelkopf Lab at Yale, and Steffen expressed his admiration for that work. Building on the Yale techniques, the IBM team was able to maintain coherence for 95 microseconds. (“But you could round that to 100 for the piece if you want,” Steffen joked.)

How To Make A Cheaper Quantum Computer
  Alex Knapp Forbes Staff

 The second approach involved a traditional 2-D qubit, which IBM’s scientists used to build a “Controlled NOT gate” or CNOT gate, which is a building block of quantum computing. A CNOT gate connects two qubits such that the second qubit will change state if the first qubit changes its state to 1. For example, if qubit A’s state is changed from 0 to 1, and qubit B’s state is 1, it will flip to state 0. But if qubit A’s state is changed from 1 to 0, qubit B is unaffected. That seems simple enough, but when you scale multiple logic gates like this together, you have a very real basis for computation. The CNOT gates were able to maintain coherence times of 10 microseconds, which is long enough to show a 95% accuracy rate. The previous accuracy record for CNOT gates was 81% accuracy, so this is a huge step.  Of course, Steffen was quick to note that there’s still a ways to go before this can be implemented as a computing solution. That makes common sense, since 95% is accurate, but in the long run you need the accuracy to be as close to 100% as possible. 
 

The Inner Workings of a Quantum von Neumann Computer Alex Knapp Forbes Staff

Given the rapid progress that IBM has made, scalable quantum computing is starting to look like a real possibility. As error-correction protocols improve and coherence times lengthen, accurate quantum computing becomes a real possibility. But don’t expect to have a quantum smartphone anytime soon using this technique. In order to get the results the IBM team has seen in either the 2-D or 3-D configuration, the qubits have to be cooled down to less than a degree above absolute zero.

“There’s a growing sense that a quantum computer can’t be a laptop or desktop,” said Steffen. “Quantum computers may well just being housed in a large building somewhere. It’s not going to be something that’s very portable.  In terms of application, I don’t think that’s a huge detriment because they’ll be able to solve problems so much faster than traditional computers.”

The next steps for the team is to improve coherence and error-correction protocols to the point where the accuracy is over 99.9%. That means they’ll have achieved a “logical qubit” – one that, for practical purposes, doesn’t experience decoherence. From that point, the next step is to develop a quantum computing architecture. IBM is considering some possibilities here, including developing some quantum memory architechture. But what encourages Steffen in these endeavors is that these are questions of engineering, not of theory.

“We are very excited about how the quantum computing field has progressed over the past ten years,” he told me. “Our team has grown significantly over past 3 years, and I look forward to seeing that team continue to grow and take quantum computing to the next level.”

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