Mark Albertson
Latest from Mark Albertson
Could programmable money dethrone the U.S. dollar?
The U.S. dollar accounts for two-thirds (63.5 percent) of global reserves held in central banks around the world, according to the latest data from the International Monetary Fund. It is essentially the de facto global currency and has been since the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944. However, the expanding ecosystem of digital currencies and growing adoption of ...
Blockchain goes from proof of concept to production at IBM
When Satoshi Nakamoto released his seminal whitepaper on a peer-to-peer electronic cash system called bitcoin in 2008, he also outlined the underlying technology to operate the fledgling digital currency. That platform — the blockchain — has since evolved into a major global force for powering transactions on a distributed ledger database. IBM Corp.’s focus on ...
NBA advertisers chew on data from GumGum’s computer vision tool
Last year, the National Basketball Association implemented a decision to allow sponsors to place small logo patches on player uniforms. It was the first time that the NBA had permitted jersey advertising, and it led to a key question: How would sponsors know whether their advertising investment was worth the multi-million-dollar cost? One company recently ...
Game plan for IBM: Build AI enterprise for itself, showcase it for customers
IBM Corp. announced the launch of Watson Assistant this week, an artificial intelligence agent that will allow enterprises to access stored data via text or voice command. IBM’s new digital assistant joins a growing list of AI-based offerings, such as Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana and Alexa for Business, designed to address data use cases in ...
Cohesity mines for gold below tip of the data iceberg
The massive amounts of data flowing into enterprises today have been described as mountainous, overwhelming, an iceberg and a tidal wave. Whatever the term used, it’s a lot of information to process. Which, is why Cohesity Inc. has focused its business not on the minor share of information mostly visible throughout the information technology organization, ...
ANALYSIS
IBM elbows its way into the blockchain conversation
As the keynote presentations during day three of the IBM Think conference in Las Vegas came to a close, the message was hard to miss: IBM is all in on the blockchain, and it intends to use its considerable technology clout and finances to build a significant business around the extrasecure, distributed ledger platform. “IBM has a tendency ...
Meet the security analyst’s new assistant: IBM Watson
The cybsersecurity industry has a basic problem. There will soon be too many attacks and not enough trained human beings to deal with them. In what IBM Corp.’s top executive proclaimed as the “man and machine” era, the company has placed its own bet on intelligent systems to fill the gap. “The security industry has ...
Big data demands agile thinking, well-defined CDO role
The problems holding many companies back are not technology-based. What inhibits digital transformation growth are process and organizational strife, at least according to one Dell EMC executive. “Some organizations still treat big data and analytics like they do the digital warehouse,” said Matt Maccaux (pictured), global big data practice lead at Dell EMC. “The most ...
If data is the center of IBM’s innovation sandwich, then cloud is the dressing
The centerpiece of the second day at IBM Corp.’s major gathering in Las Vegas this week was an address by Ginni Rometty, chairman, president and chief executive officer of IBM, who methodically outlined a vision for the company based on a theme of “Putting Smarter to Work.” The focus was on IBM’s intelligent software and data ...
NetApp focuses on cloud data services, eyes blockchain opportunity
Upon its founding in 1992, NetApp Inc.’s original business model was based on selling Unix workgroup filers to software design teams. From there, the company branched into becoming a leading network-attached storage provider. Now, the company’s website promotes itself as the “Data authority in the hybrid cloud.” This is a company that has learned to evolve ...
