WINNERS announced: National Medals of Science, Technology and Innovation - Ecademy

WINNERS announced: National Medals of Science, Technology and Innovation - Ecademy

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National Medals of Science, Technology and Innovation Winners Announced

As you may have heard, watched, or read from a number of broadcast media, yesterday President Obama announced the recipients of the 2008 National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology and Innovation which is the nation's highest honors for science and technology research. Details can be obtained from this source.

National Medal of Technology and Innovation as a company was given to IBM. What was the specific reason IBM won this highest honour for technology? It was the BLUE GENE! What is so special about BLUE GENE? Isn't it another piece of computer hardware? Well ...as mentioned in a press release by Reuters yesterday titled "President Obama Honors IBM's Blue Gene Supercomputer With National Medal Of Technology And Innovation"...

"Blue Gene's speed and expandability have enabled business and science to address a wide range of complex problems and make more informed decisions -- not just in the life sciences, but also in astronomy, climate, simulations, modeling and many other areas. Blue Gene systems have helped map the human genome, investigated medical therapies, safeguarded nuclear arsenals, simulated radioactive decay, replicated brain power, flown airplanes, pinpointed tumors, predicted climate trends, and identified fossil fuels - all without the time and money that would have been required to physically complete these tasks.

The system also reflects breakthroughs in energy efficiency. With the creation of Blue Gene, IBM dramatically shrank the physical size and energy needs of a computing system whose processing speed would have required a dedicated power plant capable of generating power to thousands of homes.

The influence of the Blue Gene supercomputer's energy-efficient design and computing model can be seen today across the Information Technology industry. Today, 18 of the top 20 most energy efficient supercomputers in the world are built on IBM high performance computing technology, according to the latest Supercomputing 'Green500 List' announced by Green500.org in July, 2009. ". IBM's perspective on this can be obtained from this link.

I congratulate all other winners and would like to see great contributors changing our lives in a positive way, a better way, for the incoming years.

What important science, technology and innovation projects would you nominate for 2009?

Regards,
Mehmet

Dr. Mehmet YILDIZ || IBM || IT Philosophy || Future|| Leadership || My blog || Twitter || Linkedin || Yasni ||Google || Naymz|| Superfan

Breakthrough progress: World's smallest semiconductor

Great to find out about another breakthrough research from the University of California, Berkeley.

They have reached a new milestone in laser physics by creating the world's smallest semiconductor laser. This will be capable of generating visible light in a space smaller than a single protein molecule. They not only successfully squeezed light into such a tight space, but found a novel way to keep that light energy from dissipating as it moved along, thereby achieving laser action. The achievement helps enable the development of such innovations as nanolasers that can probe, manipulate and characterize DNA molecules; optics-based telecommunications many times faster than current technology; and optical computing in which light replaces electronic circuitry with a corresponding leap in speed and processing power. Professor Xiang Zhang said: "This work shatters traditional notions of laser limits, and makes a major advance toward applications in the biomedical, communications and computing fields." Details here...

What possibilities and implications do you see for this progress?

Regards,
Mehmet

Dr. Mehmet YILDIZ || IBM || IT Philosophy || Future|| Leadership || My blog || Twitter || Linkedin || Yasni ||Google || Naymz