Have app, will (business) travel

<div class="MsoNormal"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkNr3LubXJHo5czXdOckHCftolywCLia8EK7BCqelveo_I-Auhr-jcmd9rvSrmSJAfMLSh3L1aKEMrHGOASvwWCVlkHR1Zac3wrUJtpMjg3Gg1woBsCNOfbloDa1HmfNmX6qcnpTgn57c0/s1600/gren.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkNr3LubXJHo5czXdOckHCftolywCLia8EK7BCqelveo_I-Auhr-jcmd9rvSrmSJAfMLSh3L1aKEMrHGOASvwWCVlkHR1Zac3wrUJtpMjg3Gg1woBsCNOfbloDa1HmfNmX6qcnpTgn57c0/s1600/gren.jpg" /></a></div><i><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">by Guang-Jie Ren, PhD, Research Staff Member, Cloud & Mobile Enterprise Research, IBM Almaden Lab</span></span></i><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I still remember my first business trip to the United States, while still a PhD student in the UK. It was to present a research paper at the Frontiers in Service Conference in San Francisco, back in October of 2007. It turned out that writing and publishing a paper about service transformation in industrial companies was not the only hard part. Coordinating the trip was also a major challenge.</span><br /><a name="more"></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A lot of my time and energy was spent applying for scholarships to cover the travel budget; appearing in the embassy to obtain a business visa; searching online for the least expensive flights and hotels; planning in advance the best route from one place to another; staring at the airports’ blue screens for flight status and gate number; and keeping all the receipts that were later stacked and stapled on the expense report. Every step of way was manual and every piece of information on paper.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Thanks to the release of the first generation iPhone that year, it became easier and easier for leisure travelers to make reservations, check in flights and get directions, anywhere anytime, with just a few taps on mobile devices. But business travelers have largely been left out.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The reality is enterprises have been slow to adapt to making the process of business travel mobile and connected. That’s why my team has been working on Project eTraveler, and two apps that tackle all those extras, from meeting schedules to expense reports.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Too Many Processes Trip Up Today’s Business Traveler</span></b><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Much of the mobile experience is a retrofit of web applications. Most business travel mobile apps have a similar look and feel and functionalities as their counterparts on the web; they neglect smaller screen sizes and fail to take advantage of capabilities unique to mobile devices, including software platform and embedded sensors. The user interface and interaction also lacks design intuition, forcing system workflows and constraints onto user behaviors rather than the other way around. Consequently, mobile adoption and engagement is low among business travelers. So travel apps are missing opportunities to motivate and empower end users for long-lasting business benefits<span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">.</span></span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEVT_13hIER5QALEyX7j273xsb9NdYsmR1euB3Mu37norJnDfkyDujSLk0CP0GptJsg4qAOUznVhVcICr8z4rt83Z6nRTDOB4J11kQ3PFhBGSRLr0jLQ-hrKPJAvk9MACSTSIrvtYaVuDz/s1600/stat1a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEVT_13hIER5QALEyX7j273xsb9NdYsmR1euB3Mu37norJnDfkyDujSLk0CP0GptJsg4qAOUznVhVcICr8z4rt83Z6nRTDOB4J11kQ3PFhBGSRLr0jLQ-hrKPJAvk9MACSTSIrvtYaVuDz/s1600/stat1a.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And business travel processes and tools are disjointed. For a typical business trip, the traveler starts with an internal pre-trip approval app to justify the business reason and provide cost estimate. They then make reservations through an online booking tool or travel management agency. Meanwhile, they must also assess their immigration compliance in the case of a cross-border trip. Once that’s settled, they’ll use a calendar or third-party app for itinerary management. And it all finally goes through yet another process for expense reimbursement<span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">.</span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">These tools are not integrated, and information is not shared or synchronized, both internally or with the external ecosystem. A lot of time is wasted in re-typing or carrying over the same information from one tool to another. Equally important, the isolated processes make it difficult and time-consuming for corporate travel program managers, who manage these processes for a business, to get visibility at both traveler and corporate levels<span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Business travel systems also don’t know you as an individual. They offer the same list of air, hotel and car rental options to everyone, regardless of your job role, business needs, traveler profile, travel history, or if you’re traveling alone or in a group, let alone any reasonable personal preferences and family constraints. They provide you with information that is often entirely out of context, from alerts about a union strike in France when Germany is the only country on your itinerary, to notifications about flight delay or gate change that are received hours after you board the plane. And they make very few if any recommendations in areas where advice is most needed, from ground transportation in an unfamiliar place, to restaurant choices for a client dinner.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5vL1r_8Zmyc9QsP0m7kvAgOcWPrxv5rzioGJRRLec7ehgYXsFk7eMqcbP2tWl_tOpderZ-XQNeZj5TECWyZZNXmVCXrJ_vf5Pog1QHLHjpNmvENRt1XcgUgjkHkbEkAniFTl8L-ORyVdj/s1600/stat2a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5vL1r_8Zmyc9QsP0m7kvAgOcWPrxv5rzioGJRRLec7ehgYXsFk7eMqcbP2tWl_tOpderZ-XQNeZj5TECWyZZNXmVCXrJ_vf5Pog1QHLHjpNmvENRt1XcgUgjkHkbEkAniFTl8L-ORyVdj/s1600/stat2a.jpg" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Existing business travel processes and tools are focused entirely on the travel side of the equation. And yet the whole purpose of any business trip is to achieve business outcomes, such as promoting products, closing deals, evaluating ideas, learning skills, and so on. There is usually no connection between business and travel, leaving it to business travelers to figure out how to make travel arrangements that best serve business needs; how to prepare for business meetings while on the go; and how to coordinate with others in order to maximize collaboration. Meanwhile, very little effort is in place to understand the relationship between travel activities and business outcomes, and establish the return on investment of business travel. As a consequence, travel spending is the primary concern, making spending control the only tool that’s widely used at the enterprise level, often at the expense of business outcomes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">First Class Connection With New Apps</span></b><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQu3igtk1YoIWcA3WvRJRJ9WxG-6U8c71nGWGxGKeeXwfvN3AA88jatOVV45DaFlB5sBNHU3hRRQpCDr8rDuMlgwysNKU65f_sWd2ienDpi2xBQ5UMbkSubjcOp7zXi6G9OXYDsf8VVmCk/s1600/travelplan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQu3igtk1YoIWcA3WvRJRJ9WxG-6U8c71nGWGxGKeeXwfvN3AA88jatOVV45DaFlB5sBNHU3hRRQpCDr8rDuMlgwysNKU65f_sWd2ienDpi2xBQ5UMbkSubjcOp7zXi6G9OXYDsf8VVmCk/s320/travelplan.jpg" width="283" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">Screen<span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">shot of Travel Plan app</span></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Recognizing these limitations, about a year ago we started a research project code-named eTraveler with colleagues from IBM Corporate Travel Program and IBM Travel Industry Units. In our vision, business travel tools on mobile platforms would no longer fly second-class. They should be built and run on the mobile-first principle, using intuitive design and mobile capabilities for the best possible user experience. We want the business travel processes transparent and integrated so data is shared without duplication or contradiction. And also make business travel services personal, and cater to explicit and implicit needs of individual business travelers -- being fully aware of their contexts and preferences, while still adhering to the enterprise’s need for policy compliance and cost optimization. Business trips should no longer just focus on travel cost, when they are really carefully organized business activities meant to maximize ROI<span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It was with this idea that we conceived, designed and developed the <a href="https://www.ibm.com/mobilefirst/us/en/mobilefirst-for-ios/industries/employee-experience/travel-plan/" target="_blank">Travel Plan</a> and <a href="https://www.ibm.com/mobilefirst/us/en/mobilefirst-for-ios/industries/employee-experience/travel-track/" target="_blank">Travel Track</a> apps as part of the <a href="https://www.apple.com/business/mobile-enterprise-apps/all-employees.html" target="_blank">IBM-Apple Partnership</a> on Mobile Enterprise. Available on iPhone, Travel Plan lets business travelers plan trips in a simple, intuitive manner. It derives trip dates and locations from the user’s meeting schedules or frequent destinations, rather than asking the user to fill in the blanks from scratch. In addition, the app is integrated with pre-trip approval and immigration compliance tools, saving the extra time and effort to go through those processes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Advanced analytics is also applied to provide trip cost estimate based on historical and real-time data, and make reservation recommendations that take into account company policies, personal preferences and past choices.</span><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJeh4hqB8zLcCpHlGQYrKZlFfsw5T6eT0xb01Rj89640JqLDLDRVYP3n_POvRN1THc_ilMyEJQ2EVPyYIsrQYzNBq_ttbr3RAbrLF4EF0QW0kHV43I8CYVZrm4ITfmEk1C_bvGp3-5shm-/s1600/traveltrack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJeh4hqB8zLcCpHlGQYrKZlFfsw5T6eT0xb01Rj89640JqLDLDRVYP3n_POvRN1THc_ilMyEJQ2EVPyYIsrQYzNBq_ttbr3RAbrLF4EF0QW0kHV43I8CYVZrm4ITfmEk1C_bvGp3-5shm-/s320/traveltrack.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">Screen<span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">shot of Travel <span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">Track</span> app</span></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">After a trip is booked, Travel Track keeps business travelers informed on the iPhone and Apple Watch. It provides trip itineraries, upcoming to-dos, status updates and major disruptions, such as traffic jams or flight delays. And it offers additional meeting intelligence, pulling data from internal and external sources about meeting participants and their affiliated organizations. The app also connects colleagues who attend the same meeting, fly on the same route, or stay in nearby hotels, and facilitates group coordination and networking. It recommends to first-time visitors local services, such as ground transportation options and restaurant choices, and encourages users to review their travel experiences, which can be used by corporate travel program managers to detect service issues and evaluate supplier performance.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Travel Plan and Travel Track enterprise apps are the first milestone of our eTraveler project, and IBM is starting to introduce them to travel-intensive clients and partners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Once implemented, the apps are available for download from an enterprise’s own app store, to ensure security protection and policy compliance. Meanwhile, our research team continues to work on other components of the business travel ecosystem, including pre-trip approval, immigration compliance, meeting briefcase, travel kit, corporate kit, and travel program analytics. The same set of principles is applied, from mobile-first and seamless integration to personalization and business centricity. And our vision remains the same, that is, to strike a healthy balance between compelling, engaging and empowering experience for business travelers, and travel spending, policy compliance and business outcomes for enterprises<span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">.</span> </span></div>

apple ibm research almaden mobile application development travel and transportation Have app, will (business) travel

by Guang-Jie Ren, PhD, Research Staff Member, Cloud & Mobile Enterprise Research, IBM Almaden Lab I still remember my first business tri...

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Watson helps cultivate improved crop yields

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/photos/2729.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/photos/2729.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"/> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"/> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"/> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"/> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"/> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"/> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"/> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"/> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"/> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"/> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"/> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"/> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"/> </v:formulas> <v:path o:extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect"/> <o:lock v:ext="edit" aspectratio="t"/></v:shapetype><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_2" o:spid="_x0000_s1026" type="#_x0000_t75" style='position:absolute;margin-left:1.9pt;margin-top:2.9pt;width:58.1pt; height:58.1pt;z-index:251658240;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square; mso-width-percent:0;mso-height-percent:0;mso-wrap-distance-left:9pt; mso-wrap-distance-top:0;mso-wrap-distance-right:9pt; mso-wrap-distance-bottom:0;mso-position-horizontal:absolute; mso-position-horizontal-relative:text;mso-position-vertical:absolute; mso-position-vertical-relative:text;mso-width-percent:0;mso-height-percent:0; mso-width-relative:page;mso-height-relative:page'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\Users\hanan\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.jpg" o:title=""/> <w:wrap type="square"/></v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><i>Editor's note: This post is by <a href="http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=il-BOAZC">Boaz Carmeli</a>, a researcher at <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/labs/haifa/index.shtml">IBM Research – Haifa</a> specializing in agriculture and health analytics.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Worldwide, approximately 800 million people suffer from malnutrition. That's about one in every nine people living on earth. How can we significantly affect this statistic given limited resources and an unequal distribution of farmlands and wealth around the globe?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">One significant approach to reducing that number requires a major increase in yield production. Optimizing fertilization can increase yield by up to 50 percent, but it requires knowledge and resources that local farmers might not have access to. Our Fertilyzer app, one of the winners of the recent <a href="https://developer.ibm.com/watson/blog/2015/06/15/watson-gbs-challenge-winners-announced/">IBM Watson + GBS Cognitive Challenge</a>, just might hold the answer to helping farmers increase their yields dramatically.<br /><a name="more"></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">An internal IBM effort, the Challenge galvanized employees to develop Watson-powered cognitive apps using Bluemix, IBM's cloud platform for building and managing mobile applications. Our work on Fertilyzer was inspired by ongoing talks we have had with one of our agricultural services clients.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Fertilyzer was awarded “Best Mobile Experience” by Challenge judges for its intuitive interface, simple access to multiple information sources, and easy-to-understand data visualizations. But this Android app is more than just great to look at. Put together by an Israeli team of IBMers led by Roi Zahut from IBM’s <a href="http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/consulting/">Global Business Services</a>, fellow GBS employees Matan Mashiah and Yosef Ben-David, and Matan Ninio and myself from <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/">Research</a>, Fertilyzer is a cognitive mobile app built using  <a href="http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/bluemix/">Bluemix</a>. It taps into Watson technology to recommend optimized fertilization plans and track their progress. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Fertilyzer model allows farmers to consider weather conditions, soil types, and field history to generate fertilization plans and predict cost, yield, and profit. Once all the predictions and related plans of action are ready, Fertilyzer then uses IBM Watson <a href="http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercloud/tradeoff-analytics.html">Tradeoff Analytics</a> to help the farmer make the right decision. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">The app also includes a dashboard that helps keep the farmer updated on agricultural news and plan progression. Fertilyzer reads through an immense range of news articles and tweets and sends relevant news and alerts to the farmer when it finds something important, like a forecasted price drop or an upcoming storm, so farmers can act on new information.</div><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/130135193" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br />Let's say a farmer is planning an upcoming season for a specific crop, such as a russet potato variety. Fertilyzer's connection with Watson Tradeoff Analytics can help him weigh different options, while stressing certain variables, such as profit, and filtering out others, like risk. But if news starts to trend before planting about an expected potato price crash in his region, Watson's news filter can send an alert to the farmer's Fertilyzer app, thereby allowing him to adjust crop plans before it's too late. Ultimately, more-efficiently grown crops will improve yield, providing more food to more people. In a small but substantial way, we hope Fertilyzer will help communities tackle hunger and malnutrition.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Our next steps for development are to test the tool and gather more data. We’ve built a great prediction model that takes into account a wide variety of environmental parameters, but now we need to see how it will work in the field (pun intended). We also plan to extend the tool’s news and social media services to support more languages and learn how to detect even more events.<br /><br />For more information about Fertilyzer, <a href="mailto:boazc@il.ibm.com" target="_blank">contact me</a>.</div>

agriculture bluemix farming fertilization Fertilyzer GBS IBM Research - Haifa IBM Watson mobile application development Tradeoff Analytics Watson helps cultivate improved crop yields

Editor's note: This post is by  Boaz Carmeli , a researcher at IBM Research – Haifa specializing in agriculture and health analytics. W...

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Analytics helping cities and citizens smartly manage water metering

<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">Real-time data on water usage benefits providers and end users</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">Editor’s note: This article is by <u><a href="http://researcher.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=ie-bradley.eck">Bradley Eck</a></u>, IBM Research-Ireland’s Smarter Cities Technology Centre manager in Dublin.</span></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="//img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /><style>st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style><![endif]--><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhftOGuXArfu269FEnzhnak4m4_XfKe5sd28Zl2C25lvs_VwFXggiGSMFBiOYBlpyMcaQaAStmY5LPIHjo7IpJ4xci5bd0eAtBMBQ-RiGTnbvXgzS0K2uraa05kpz81NLQjhZheu6FkZiE/s1600/bradley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhftOGuXArfu269FEnzhnak4m4_XfKe5sd28Zl2C25lvs_VwFXggiGSMFBiOYBlpyMcaQaAStmY5LPIHjo7IpJ4xci5bd0eAtBMBQ-RiGTnbvXgzS0K2uraa05kpz81NLQjhZheu6FkZiE/s1600/bradley.jpg" /></a></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">A faucet that drips just once per second wastes 2,700 gallons of water, annually. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">My<span style="color: black;"> Water and Environment team is developing tools and methodologies, as part of an EU-funded project called </span><u><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.i-widget.eu/">iWIDGET</a></span></u>,<span style="color: black;"> to manage urban water demand by reducing waste like leaky taps. </span></span><br /><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">iWIDGET links 9 expert </span><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"><a href="http://www.i-widget.eu/partners/partner-responsibilities.html">partners</a></span></u><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"> together to look at how analytics and smart meters can help cities and their citizens get real-time data on their water and related energy usage – with the aim of improving the management of urban water demand by reducing waste, and improving utilities’ understanding of end-user demand, and ultimately reducing customer water and energy costs. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/global/images/us__en_us__water__info1__300x170.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/global/images/us__en_us__water__info1__300x170.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/global/files/us__en_us__water__water_infographic_031512.pdf">Download Infographic</a></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">iWIDGET </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">provides householders with easily accessible information that will allow them to make decisions on how to reduce water usage, and thus, their water bills. Plus, as utilities will have better visibility on their customers’ usage, they will be able to more-accurately forecast demand – and send their customers alerts if a leak is suspected. </span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">Building iWidget</span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">For our part, my team in Dublin focused on iWIDGET’s system architecture to improve a utility’s planning, operation, and management of real-time sensor data, and developed analytics around the high-resolution consumption data. <span style="color: black;">Not an easy task, as this involves noisy raw data and dozens of third party systems and analytical tools. </span>So, we built an API for the entire system that connects and interfaces with each partner’s components.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimyk2B60p89Yp3351YtSTYgoziNAAUPOtRY4Vm73HYRQEuY45gVsLzhAsERn2i38U1hnt4GIONBaM8neVhdGQa9NqwgjfHrO0KJWdnfiKhTflqkTS8U8G-bPev-NWrZyLJSY7_QeP5oLgv/s1600/mobile_app.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimyk2B60p89Yp3351YtSTYgoziNAAUPOtRY4Vm73HYRQEuY45gVsLzhAsERn2i38U1hnt4GIONBaM8neVhdGQa9NqwgjfHrO0KJWdnfiKhTflqkTS8U8G-bPev-NWrZyLJSY7_QeP5oLgv/s1600/mobile_app.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">iWidget on the iPhone</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">Some of the components can be accessed via mobile applications. Meter Replacement, for example, looks at the history of readings and meter type to determine the best time to replace their meters. Another app focuses on pump scheduling, where real time data from smart meters feed in to a pumping plan that helps reduce energy costs.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">iWIDGET system trials have started in Portugal, Greece and the UK, and will conclude in 2015. The envisaged outcome of the iWIDGET project is increased interoperability between water information systems at the European Union and national levels, and overall improved efficiency of water resource management.<span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: black;"> </span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">For more information on the project please visit the</span><span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"><a href="http://www.i-widget.eu/" target="_blank"><span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: #745285;">iWIDGET project website</span></a></span></u><span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">, or join our group on</span><span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups/FP7-project-iWIDGET-smart-meters-4835109" target="_blank"><span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: #745285;">LinkedIn</span></a></span></u><span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">, </span><span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">or follow</span><span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/iWIDGET_FP7" target="_blank"><span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: #745285;">@iWIDGET_FP7</span></a></span></u><span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span><span style="background: #FBFBFB; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;">on Twitter.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.0pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="//img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /><style>st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style><![endif]--><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div>

ibm research - Ireland iwidget mobile application development smarter water utilities Analytics helping cities and citizens smartly manage water metering

Real-time data on water usage benefits providers and end users Editor’s note: This article is by Bradley Eck , IBM Research-Ireland’s Smarte...

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Mapping out the growth of location services on the cloud

<script src="http://static.meteorsolutions.com/metsol.js" type="text/javascript"></script><script src="http://cdnt.meteorsolutions.com/api/multi_track?application_id=6787616a-bec6-48d3-8b3c-0f08ab2bf44a&url_storage_source=hash&query_string_tag_key=mtag&query_string_tag_key=source&query_string_tag_key=src" type="text/javascript"></script> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKAOgb0AEEe2bXY9UFB0SlfXsFfVZ-wDcnOfXyucv6VPQhqcEsEEpg4C76eDPlD-w-x_WjzqGpowDkmHNZVavX_H6Uz-e4TBJ9O2DNbPrY4mv1OYJDqOsv7u5PtuW2_NDvs_oyCIyjmqw/s1600/Jonathan_Bnayahu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKAOgb0AEEe2bXY9UFB0SlfXsFfVZ-wDcnOfXyucv6VPQhqcEsEEpg4C76eDPlD-w-x_WjzqGpowDkmHNZVavX_H6Uz-e4TBJ9O2DNbPrY4mv1OYJDqOsv7u5PtuW2_NDvs_oyCIyjmqw/s1600/Jonathan_Bnayahu.jpg" width="182" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jonathan Bnayahu </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Editor’s note: This article is by Jonathan Bnayahu, Manager of Smart Decision Solutions at IBM Research – Haifa.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Location-aware technologies and their sensors in our mobile devices, connected cars, and environment, have become ubiquitous – and big business. Analyst firm Gartner expects Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud-based business application services to reach $32.2B by 2016, and that revenue generated by consumer location-based services will reach $13.5B by next year. To take advantage of this growth, today's smarter systems need to be able to sense, analyze, monitor, predict, and respond to space- and time-based situations. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To meet this challenge head-on, my team at IBM Research – Haifa is developing location services that can be incorporated into mobile apps or cloud services. These solutions embrace a comprehensive set of technologies that make it easier to build smart systems than can identify, predict, and take proactive actions in space-time situations.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Just a few examples of location queries these services can provide, includes: </span></div><ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Get a list of the five technicians closest to a specific location</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Get the last few minutes traveled by an entity</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Alert when a customer is near the shop, alert when a visitor has left a group of people doing a tour of the premises</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Get notification when all staff have arrived at the facility</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Alert when the speed of a vehicle goes above a certain threshold</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Alert when a vehicle, vessel or person deviates from the planned route</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And more… </span></li></ul><div class="MsoNormal"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXqTCc_yxIIE0Bjy3NQuSXBwvOaMyeSWKqPzw2EOEG7S3SsAFBa4i6QmKFiImy7NmOYTB-dYlI3EetBsx1K4WQaXG9rBOagFOa1lC-GLSpM5Xn5F7CPaSUilWL5JgnEpAd3bDHzQWfl_E/s1600/locationmapping2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXqTCc_yxIIE0Bjy3NQuSXBwvOaMyeSWKqPzw2EOEG7S3SsAFBa4i6QmKFiImy7NmOYTB-dYlI3EetBsx1K4WQaXG9rBOagFOa1lC-GLSpM5Xn5F7CPaSUilWL5JgnEpAd3bDHzQWfl_E/s1600/locationmapping2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When a user who visited the website last week enters the area, he gets a tailored message based on his loyalty card</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The visualization and mapping technologies we create as part of this solution are especially helpful in identifying spatio-temporal patterns and trends. One example is the visualization of maritime traffic on a map of the port. In a pilot with a port authority, we were able to help identify smuggling boats that were evading customs agents by discovering areas where singular vessels slowed their speed significantly in places that were not part of the typical routes taken. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In another pilot, we were able to use these technologies to help public transportation officials check the efficiency of their bus schedules. By mapping unscheduled stops buses make throughout the day and identifying encounters between buses serving different lines we provided city officials with data on specific problematic time slots and frequencies.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By delivering new cloud services that streamline development for mobile applications, our research is helping create more efficient enterprise apps and improve interaction with customers.</span></div>

cloud services IBM Research - Haifa Jonathan Bnayahu location-based services mapping technologies mobile application development mobile backend services spatio-temporal visualization Mapping out the growth of location services on the cloud

Jonathan Bnayahu Editor’s note: This article is by Jonathan Bnayahu, Manager of Smart Decision Solutions at IBM Research – Haifa. Location-...

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