I'm not holding out much hope for IBM in this endeavor, they couldn't manufacture a decent hard drive for **** and ended up selling the division to Hitachi.

IBM used to have a kick-ass R&D department in the 90's and earlier, I have no idea how they are now.

what exactly is ibm anyways

the inventors of the computer bug

Imagine traffic lights that can integrate sights, sounds and smells and flag unsafe intersections before disaster happens.

A computing system that could monitor the world's water supply -- measuring things like temperature, pressure, wave height and acoustics -- then give a warning when it thinks a tsunami is likely.

Or imagine a sensor that a grocery store owner could use to read sights, smells and temperatures and give an alert that produce may have gone bad.

These are all **** examples.

"Imagine a sensor that can tell you when there's carbon monoxide inside your home!"

Or imagine a sensor that a grocery store owner could use to read sights, smells and temperatures and give an alert that produce may have gone bad.

I can imagine a sensor that a grocery store owner could use to read sights, smells and temperatures and give an alert that a group of ******s is about to rob the place.

that book robopocalypse comes to mind

Originally Posted by Shadow(of)Death

IBM has turned out to be a very cool company these past several years . . . actually for a while now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39jtNUGgmd4

the article is too vague to be interesting

How about machines that can build other machines, and repair themselves also.

Then we could employ a mandatory 6 month workforce. When an individual turned 18, they would serve in the workforce, which would be responsible for determining what needs to be built to maintain a certain level of existence, what could be improved, and what new luxuries could be built.

Education leading up to that point would primarily deal with history and other arts related knowledge. Some math, and other studies, and then the rest would be focused on training for that 6 month period of work.

After the mandatory 6 months, you would retire to a life of luxury.

Ofcourse for this existence to be sustainable we would need to mine nearby extraterrestrial bodies for resources. Put a limit on reproduction (maybe only have so many vouchers available per year) and perhaps also set a planned death date at age 100, or by that time, whatever seems like a long life-span.

Originally Posted by Shadow(of)Death

How about machines that can build other machines, and repair themselves also.

Then we could employ a mandatory 6 month workforce. When an individual turned 18, they would serve in the workforce, which would be responsible for determining what needs to be built to maintain a certain level of existence, what could be improved, and what new luxuries could be built.

Education leading up to that point would primarily deal with history and other arts related knowledge. Some math, and other studies, and then the rest would be focused on training for that 6 month period of work.

After the mandatory 6 months, you would retire to a life of luxury.

Ofcourse for this existence to be sustainable we would need to mine nearby extraterrestrial bodies for resources. Put a limit on reproduction (maybe only have so many vouchers available per year) and perhaps also set a planned death date at age 100, or by that time, whatever seems like a long life-span.

You need to read Stanilaw Lem's story about the civilization that reached the Highest Possible Level of Development.