11 4 / 2011
09 3 / 2011
Syracuse named one of IBM’s ‘smarter cities,’ wins technology grant from company
Source: syracuse.com
Syracuse is one of 24 cities worldwide to win a Smarter Cities Challenge grant worth up to $400,000 from technology giant IBM, the company will announce today.
The prize: As many as 10 experts from IBM will spend three weeks in Syracuse later this year working on a project chosen by city officials, to develop a software-based planning tool to combat the problem of vacant properties.
More than 200 cities applied for grants in the first annual round of a three-year, $50 million program that IBM says will ultimately help 100 cities. Syracuse is one of just eight U.S. cities chosen, and the only one from New York. International winners include Bucharest, Delhi, Glasgow, Helsinki, Jakarta and Rio de Janeiro. “Syracuse is in very good company here,” said Ari Fishkind, speaking for IBM.
Mayor Stephanie Miner said the IBM team, expected to arrive sometime next fall, will work mainly with tech-savvy city employees from planning, codes and neighborhood development.
17 2 / 2011
TEDTalks Sponsors | IBM Watson
Final Jeopardy! and the Future of Watson
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Tune in here for the webcast on Feb. 17 at 11:30 AM EST.
(via smartercities)
25 1 / 2011
Ask, and you shall receive
All I asked was to be surrounded by smarter minds. I’ve been fortunate to run into a few geniuses thus far, and at the start of this project, I made a silent request to have such similar fortune in due time. Didn’t take long for the universe to send something my way. Enter the Serendipity Engine.
The creation of an intelligence agent requires a certain level of brain power surpassing anything I can possibly attain in the next few years. Let a decade by, and maybe I would have amassed enough to sensibly put together a feasible flowchart of what I am pursuing. When that thought hit me a few weeks back, I started out on a journey to accelerate the supposed “decade” timeline. This led me straight to Seymour.
Now there are many elements in here that put a giant smile on my face.
YES - this is essentially the same idea as me.
NO - I am not quitting it because someone else has gotten it down
YES - I have a few other implementations that are still novel.
Saying I have a smile on my face fails to do this justice. ECSTATIC! Now that’s more like it.
Ever had an idea and simply wondered if it was even worth the time? If you haven’t already, have you wondered what it would be like to find a career that just makes you smile every single day to think about it? AksJeeves.com did not stop Google. Need I say more? An office at Clever Sense is perhaps in my near future. Until then, LIVKART continues, and my self-education picks up even more speed with a live working model of an intelligence engine to base my ideas on.
06 1 / 2011
Typo maybe?
LIVKART - Doesn’t stand for a live kart. I admit, I do admire those who manage to construct really cool names by simply omitting a character or two somewhere. This isn’t one of those instances. Yes, there are 2 complete words there. Yes they do make sense when put together. Yes, it definitely not English.
LIV = LIFE KART= MAP
As a tribute to my Nordic toddler years, and my enthrallment with moving to Iceland, I resorted to Scandinavian when the time came to choose a name to call this project and officially get started on it. Now without going into too much detail, the intelligence engine will serve to guide our decision making process. It won’t just be limited to budgeting/ where-to-eat/ which-vehicle-to-purchase-or-use etc. It’ll have the ability to encompass it all.
LIVKART learns and maps out one’s life as it sees it by collecting data from every resource available - social networks, calendars, weather/travel, finances, location etc. With all that information available, something like getting stuck in traffic in search of the closest Italian restaurant, only to arrive there and find out the menu doesn’t have your favorite meal, and that the wait time for the substitute you ordered means you will be late for that after lunch meeting can be easily be avoided.
I’ll give a scenario or two in the next post detailing how LIVKART (at its simplest level) maps it all out and discretely saves the day, so don’t stray too far.
04 1 / 2011
First day in the office… if I can call it that.
I feel like nothing was accomplished today. Maybe it is a good thing. While I strongly doubt that, the greater part of my 12 hour work day was spent flicking through cool workspaces on flickr. There’s some incredibly beautiful images on there… and most of them would certainly incline me towards productivity after gawking for 5 minutes every morning to absorb the tranquility.
Took me just about that same 5 minutes to decide I want a minimalist design. The floating desk on the wall would be great, but the depth of the shelf means very little leg room.
Then I came across the K desk. Granted I don’t need to feel like I’m in a library to get work done, but the curves and lines just make me want something similar to this. So its decided then. I have a play date with google sketchup to create a custom version for myself. I’m not a true DIYer so a call to the woodshop is also in order to get an idea of cost.
While I’m getting this taken care of, I plan on completing Stage 1 before the end of the week - Defining the project.
02 1 / 2011
The Birth of an Idea
It’s done. Settled I say. The target is up and the time to take aim has arrived. Took me a few weeks to decide on a name for this project. LivKart! Simple and plain, yet not so obvious to the untrained eye.
Now on to the first draft of the logo, a venture I hope doesn’t consume an unjustifiable number of hours. Be is at it may, my creativity is good at best. Once in a blue moon I do surprise myself. These occurrences are not on par with everything else I’m great at.
So while I wait to shine amidst the graphically inclined, an introduction and preamble are in order. My excitement is at quite a peak. I’ll need to organize myself before sharing this idea with the world. Stick around, this will be fun… trust me.
