SuperBad SuperBowl
You can listen in here to the podcast edition of the SuperBad SuperBowl blog post below (MP3, 4:34)
Power to the Planet
IBM is announcing today the first of its Power7 processor-based systems and the Power7 processor itself at an event in NYC.
This new chip is a major step forward in chip design from IBM, integrating eight processing cores in one chip package, and with each core being capable of executing four tasks or “threads.”
Intel’s Xeon processors, by way of comparison, have two threads per processing core.
The new Power7 systems that IBM is announcing that use these processors include:
- IBM Power 780: a new category of scalable, high-end servers, featuring an advanced modular design with up to 64 Power7 cores.
- IBM Power 770: a midrange system with up to 64 Power7 cores, featuring higher performance per core than Power6 processors and using up to 70 percent less energy for the same number of cores as Power6 processors.
- IBM Power 755: a high-performance computing cluster node with 32 Power7 cores.
The power of Power7 is the ability to facilitate millions of transactions in real time, the potential for which will be to support any variety of the smarter planet initiatives IBM is working on with customers around the globe (smarter traffic, smarter healthcare, and others which require high-performance processing at an affordable price).
As the world gets smarter, demands on IT are going to grow substantially, and workload optimized systems (including Power7) are going to be best equipped to help support that demand.
In the case of Power7, both IBM hardware and software have been optimized to handle the increased demand, with the hardware having been optimized with larger cache per core for data-intensive workloads, and the software optimized through multi-thread exploitation and near linear clustering.
In the following video, you can learn how IBM Power7 systems are assisting in cancer research at Rice University, and you’ll hear from IBM Power Systems GM Ross Mauri on the details of the new “smarter systems”:
The new Power7 systems, which build on IBM’s 12-point revenue share gains since 2004 in the $14 billion UNIX market, can manage millions of transactions in real time and analyze the associated volumes of data typical of emerging applications.
How can these systems be used for their greatest potential?
A smart electrical grid, for example, requires per-the-minute data to deliver electricity where it is needed most, in real time, while helping customers monitor their energy consumption in real time to avoid or reduce usage during the most expensive peaks each day.
A major U.S. utility moving to a smart grid pilot is moving from processing less than one million meter reads per day in a traditional grid, to more than 85 million reads per day in a smart grid. The utility needs to collect, analyze, and present all that information to its nearly five million customers in real time versus the overnight batch processing of a traditional electrical grid which delivers monthly billing statements.
eMeter, a leading maker of software that runs e-grids, uses IBM Power Systems to process the extreme amount of data that comes in from millions of smart meters while analyzing that information on the fly.
In Canada, operators of Ontario’s grid — the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) — which provides centralized metering services for more than 90 utility companies within Ontario Province, uses eMeter software on IBM Power Systems to process hourly power consumption data from all residential customers and plans soon to move to 15-minute data for large commercial users across the province in the near future.
“eMeter ran a successful benchmark on IBM POWER6 systems for more than 20 million smart meters — more than four-times scale of any other utilities industry benchmark,” said Scott Smith, client business manager, eMeter. “We know that there are already markets in the world that are scaling significantly. Combining eMeter and IBM’s POWER7 we are confident we can hit much higher numbers to meet their needs.
You can read the Power7 emerging news coverage of Power7 here and the full press release here.
SuperBad SuperBowl
Who dat?
First, take dem bags off yo heads. You aint got no reason to wear dem no bags no more, N’awlins Saints!
Congratulations on your first ever SuperBowl victory! And what a great victory it was for the great city of New Orleans!
The amigos watching the game at my house and I couldn’t have been more pleased. What a SuperBowl!
I think this was my first SuperBowl ever where the game completely outplayed the advertising.
Of course, that wasn’t exactly a challenge this year.
In fact, I’d have to say this was probably the worst advertising year EVER for the SuperBowl.
As in bad. As in really, really bad.
I Tweeted sometime mid-game “Did Al Qaeda strike Madison Avenue and nobody bothered to tell me?,” adding the hashtag #deathofadvertising
In the start of the first quarter, I just figured it was anomaly, that they were just saving the better spots for later.
But it never got any better. I kept waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
I stopped counting at 78 spots (I included movie previews and most of the CBS promos, just to be consistent).
At the end of it all, there were two spots that stuck with me, remembering that good advertising should not only entertain, it should also inform and move the potential purchaser to take action — that is, an action other than running into the bathroom during commercial breaks to relieve one’s self because the commercials were so bad.
One was the Google ad. That spot was cleverly done, well thought through, and there wasn’t a word spoken, all quite surprising considering that this was Google’s inaugural appearance in the big game.
It was hands down the winner in my book, specifically in terms of advertising value (not just entertainment value), because even if you weren’t aware of Google’s service, you would walk away from that ad with a very good idea of what the Google search engine could do for you.
And yes, it doesn’t strike me as being without some great irony that one of the best SuperBowl TV ads this year, if not THE best, was produced by an Internet search engine.
Go figure.
The other ad that I remembered was Denny’s space station floating, White House convening, chickens which were once again offering me a free Grand Slam tomorrow between 6 AM and 2 PM. I remember that distinctly (then again, I like Grand Slams).
That’s it. All the rest of ‘em, virtually the entire pack, were misogynistic, silly, flat, teenage drivel.
If you watched nothing else all year long, you’d think we were headed firmly for the futuristic banality of Mike Judge’s Idiocracy, where butt jokes rule the day and the World Wrestling Federation rules the government.
Speaking of which, I have just a few questions:
When, exactly, did Lance Armstrong start promoting beer drinking on TV? What’s next, Olympic snowboarder Shaun White backs medical marijuana clubs?
Can we assume that The Simpsons is now in full pimp out mode, now that we’ve discovered that all of Springfield is a Coca-Cola town (although they had no choice! Pepsi decided to gracefully bow out of this year’s SuperBowl in favor of doing some social media philanthropy instead, which is looking more and more like the most brilliant advertising decision of 2010).
Is a funeral really the most logical place one thinks of when trying to hawk Doritos? Really? I say no, unless the funeral is for the now-defunct Taco flavored ones, in which case I concur, but only if you’re bringing the Taco flavored Doritos back.
Did Budweiser really think that driving a Bud delivery truck over a bridge made of people would help sell more beer, or was that perhaps the proverbial bridge too far?
Even longterm sellout rock band Kiss (and I’ll admit it, I’m a longtime fan) became a miniature sendoff of themselves when they used “a little Kiss” to sell Dr. Pepper Cherry.
Gene Simmons, helping sell a product where “Cherry” was a featured part of the product name? Are you frickin’ kiddin’ me?!!
No, I think the real advertising winner of the evening was Bridgestone, which brought us The Who’s halftime show.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, The Who delivered, which is more than I can say for the rest of the evening’s entertainment (excluding the game, of course).
And other than me and my amigos laughing our you-know-what’s off as Daltrey and Townsend sang “Let’s get together before we get much older,” it really was nice to meet the old boss, who really was the same as the old boss.
The next time I go shopping for tires, I am seriously going to have to consider shopping for some Bridgestones – if for no other reason than for their having salvaged the car wreck (brought to you by Toy…oh, never mind) that was Advertising SuperBowl 2010.
Some Sporting Predictions
If you read this blog with any regularity (or even if you don’t), you know that I’m a pretty rabid sports fan.
As in, a lot of sports.
I play golf these days; am still a mountain biker when I’m not on an airplane; played basketball, football, soccer, baseball, and golf in high school (and ran cross country); and I still wish I could have been George Plimpton (I did meet him once at a bar in NY…really nice guy) so I could live out my Walter Mitty sports fantasy.
I read Michael Lewis’ Moneyball with great fascination, learning about the Oakland A’s using player performance stats to build a competitive baseball franchise in a smaller market than the Yanks or the Red Sox.
Of course, the blending of data analytics and virtual sports didn’t end with baseball.
NFL players are now using their experiences playing Electronic Arts’ Madden football franchise to learn new moves off the field via their big screen TVs, only to implement them later on the field.
And a survey conducted by the University of Oregon of more than 15,000 NFL fans found that those who play Madden’s virtual football regularly were found to have a 60% higher football IQ than the average football fan.
In light of the coming SuperBowl championship between the New Orleans “Who Dat” Saints and the Indianapolis Colts, Scott Laningham and I thought we’d get into the spirit of the season and pursue the intersection of sports and data analytics in a podcast interview with an old friend of mine, Gibby McCaleb, chief operating officer of sports forecasting firm, AccuScore.
AccuScore feeds sports predictions to the likes of Yahoo, ESPN, CBS Sports, and others, and though we’re both fans of the Dallas Cowboys (along with Scott), we put our disappointment and biases aside long enough to talk about AccuScore’s prediction model and the opportunities and challenges presented by sports forecasting.
This was a fun one, and Gibby even gave us a sneak preview into AccuScore’s call on this year’s big game!
You can listen to the podcast here (MP3, 17:42), and you can read more about AccuScore’s SuperBowl 44 forecast here.
IBM to Acquire Initiate Systems
IBM announced today it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Initiate Systems, a market leader in data integrity software for information sharing among healthcare and government organizations.
Financial details were not disclosed.
This deal advances IBM’s continued juggernaut in the business analytics and optimization arena, this time with a focus on helping healthcare organizations and governments around the globe by helping ensure the delivery of trusted and accurate information.
Healthcare providers are facing a huge challenge — integrating accurate information from hundreds of sources. This information is spread across hospitals, doctors’ offices and healthcare providers hindering proper patient care and raising medical costs.
Hospitals, integrated delivery networks, insurers and governments, all have been seeking to create systems that share a consistent view of all critical information as a means of improving both patient health and efficiency.
Initiate’s software has helped bring together data from separate systems managed by hospitals, doctors’ offices and payers at more than 2,400 healthcare sites and over 40 health information exchanges, and government health systems around the world including CVS/Caremark, Blue Cross Blue Shield, United Healthcare Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Initiate’s technology also helps speed the adoption and exchange of electronic medical records, and in the public sector, helps provide government agencies access to pertinent information across multiple systems.
Healthcare and life sciences are a multi-billion dollar business for IBM, which has worked on more than 3,000 healthcare transformation initiatives ranging from small hospitals to national healthcare projects. IBM has more than 4,000 employees dedicated to healthcare and a network of more than 1,800 business partners.
This is IBM’s 30th acquisition aimed at advancing its ability to help clients – in this case the healthcare and government sectors – use information and business analytics to better serve the public.
Since 2005, IBM has invested $10 billion in 14 other strategic acquisitions to build its business analytics portfolio.
Flying Java Monkeys
There’s two ways I sense that the Web technology market is starting to pick up some momentum.
One, the Techmeme page starts to get longer and longer.
Two, you start to see crazy money starting to fly around like recently uncaged monkeys again (Okay, monkeys can’t fly, but it’s the visual that’s important here).
For example, Softbank has led a financing round for live video streamer (and Apple iPad announce day savior for flyover country) Ustream, which, according to Bloomberg, will use the money to expand primarily in Japan, China, Korea, and India.
Specifically, for live streaming to mobile devices.
And while Ustream’s getting busy with it’s streaming expansion to the East, Google’s getting down to business with the announcement of its new App Store for Business, where it will sell add-ons for its Web productivity apps.
The store’s expected to open sometime in March, reports the Wall Street Journal, and will sell business software from external (not Google’s) developers that “integrate and add capabilities to Google Apps.”
One would presume all those new apps would also run on the rumored Google tablet device.
What, you didn’t think they were going to take the iPad lying down, didja?
But the insider’s insider, Robert Scoble, explains there’s a whole lot more going on here than meets the eye, and that developers developers developers (with all due credit to Steve Ballmer) are ultimately going to be the winners of these emerging media and tablet wars.
So many devices, so many versions, so little time.
I knew I should have taken that Java programming class when I had the chance.
Just for funsies, here’s a Java oldie but goodie from back in the day, circa 1995, when broadband streaming into the home was virtually impossible and coding efficiency was a given:
public class HelloWorld {
// method main(): ALWAYS the APPLICATION entry point
public static void main (String[] args) {
System.out.println ("Hello World!");
}
}
Hello World!
Hey, remember to keep an out for flying monkeys!
Gaga for Ebooks
Didja see the Grammys last night?
I caught the opening act with Lady Gaga and Elton John, which I found quite entertaining.
And then Stephen Colbert took the stage to kick things off as this year’s Grammys emcee.
And before too long, it became clear Apple’s product placement team had been earning their keep, because instead of a staid ol’ envelope containing the names of the nominees for “Song of the Year,” Colbert pulled from his jacket what appeared to be a working Apple iPad.
You could hear Mac fanboys sighing in synchronicity from around the globe.
They were sighing almost as loudly as the digerati were crying about Amazon’s decision to acquiesce to Macmillan publishing’s request to sell their e-books on Amazon for $15.
Why the —storm? Well, as Henry Blodget points out, the incremental costs for publishing e-books is “pretty much zero,” and Macmillan’s driving Amazon to adopt Macmillan’s pricing regime as opposed to letting Amazon continue to decide at what price to price its books.
Hey, at least they’ve not jumped completely into Chris Anderson-land and announced they’re giving them away for free.
Who’d a thunk that 10 years after I got my first e-book reader (the Rocket e-Book reader), that the publishing and e-retailing industry would still be squabbling over the price of an e-book?
Life’s really too short for this.
All I know about the book publishing industry is this: I went in to my local Borders yesterday to get a copy of the new political tome Game Change, only to find out they were charging $27.00 U.S.!
I came home and surfed through Amazon to find they were offering it for $13.99.
Done, done and done. I’ll give one guess as to where I bought the book.
And really, that’s all you need to know about the Amazon juggernaut.
I’m hopeful that Amazon’s caving to Macmillan’s pricing request is part of a larger strategy.
Can we all just get along? Or better yet, move it along?
When’s somebody gonna unleash Steve Jobs on the negotiating case with Macmillan?
That’s a negotiating session I’d like to be a fly on the wall for.
And, one for which I might even pay a premium so I could get a signed autographed copy from the author.
The Apple iTablet Podcast
Scott Laningham and I got together via Skype this afternoon to debrief on the Apple iPad tablet announcement.
As I joked in the podcast, the iPad looks like an iPhone for for the Jolly Green Giant, but don’t mistake the seeming limitations of the razor for the giant opportunity to sell more digital razor blades.
Scott and Turbo Apple iPad Debrief Podcast (12:34, MP3)
Super Wednesday
Wow, tomorrow is gonna be some Wednesday.
First, the World Economic Forum kicks off in Davos, Switzerland. Once again this year, my tickets seem to have gotten lost in the mail.
Second, President Obama is slated to make his first State of the Union speech before Congress and the American people.
But we all know what the really big story is for this particular Wednesday: Steve Jobs’ introduction of the new Apple Tablet computer tablet thingamajiggy that I don’t think Apple has ever even confirmed existed, much less what its feature/functions are.
Once again, the brilliance of the no talky Apple marketing machine speaks volumes without ever even so much as a head nod.
Me, I don’t need another Apple device. But, I’ll likely end up buying one, anyway.
Maybe.
Possibly.
Almost most assuredly.
Can I go ahead and pre-order one now?
(Full disclosure: I bought some Apple stock recently. I’m banking on this tablet sucker taking their stock sky high, and with the profits I hope to make off the sale of the stock, I’m going to turn around and buy an Apple tablet.)
That means all the rest of you have to go out and buy one first so that you send their stock into the stratosphere so that I can make enough to buy one for myself.
Now, I don’t own many shares, so that means you all really need to go out and buy two tablets just to give me a safe margin.
Sound like a plan?
Of course, with Apple’s quarterly earnings announced yesterday against a record sale of Macs in a single quarter, we’re well on our way.
I just pray the new tablet isn’t the second coming of the Newton.
turbotodd