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How It Works: The Intelligent Utility Network

Today, energy and utilities conservation is a major issue for the public sector, businesses and consumers. Technology is making a major impact on reducing energy costs, and enabling more effective distribution and use of utilities.

How It Works: The Genographic Project

The National Geographic Society and IBM have teamed up to track your ancestors' journeys. Here's how it works.

Deep Thunder

Deep Thunder localized, customized weather forecasts are helping businesses and organizationsmanage both routine and emergency weather events, cutting costs, streamlining logistics, even saving lives.

Innovation for everyone

An emerging understanding of the wide range of human differences and abilities turns questions of accessibility upside down: Instead of creating a world of ideal forms to which we then find ways for people to adapt themselves, shouldn't we be adapting the world to the people?

How It Works: World Community Grid

Volunteer your computer's unused power to World Community Grid and it can spend available CPUS helping advance research for a cure for AIDS, or improved treatment for cancer, or any number of other efforts that can improve the way we live. Get in the Grid.....it gives new meaning to the importance of downtime.

Intelligent energy

The goal: sustainable energy use that can build economies while protecting the planet. The challenge: rethink and redesign the systems that bring power to the people.

IBM and NASA collaborate on James Webb Space Telescope

When you launch a telescope a million miles into space, it needs to be as failproof as possible. Find out why NASA chose an IBM Rational systems development solution for its newest telescope, designed to peer back to the origins of time.

Stockholm gets out of a jam

Every day, people commute in and out of Sweden's capital. The traffic made city-life difficult. But with IBM, Stockholm found a way to reduce congestion, boost public transport usage and improve the overall quality of life for its citizens. Here's how it works.

Smarter oilfields make dollars and sense

New technology is now transforming how oilfields operate. While the concept of the intelligent oilfield has been around for some time, what this model means and how it works is changing. So are the results.

Piecing together a crime in bits and bytes

When a crime occurs, it can be possible to piece together the story by analyzing the data: evidence, identities, surveillance video, names. Find out more about the latest innovations in fighting crime.

A closer look at RFID

Radio frequency identification technology has come a long way. And businesses can go even further by going beyond the beep and leveraging powerful insight into their enterprises.

The race against bird flu

While deadly, the H5N1 "avian flu" virus isn't easily transmissible between humans today. But influenza viruses tend to mutate and that's what worries public health experts.

World-class media made portable, worldwide

Chris Armstrong of Galway, Ireland, didn't want to rent a DVD, he wanted to watch a movie. Being an inventor and entrepreneur, he came up with an innovative solution. Here's how he made it real-and global.

The Great Rivers Partnership

The Great Rivers Partnership helps protect freshwater resources, transforming the way large river systems are preserved and protected. IBM has joined the effort, providing high performance super-computing for three-dimensional visualization of these crucial natural resources.

Breakthroughs in chips over a decade

In a look back at the past ten years, these were the top ten breakthroughs in chip technology out of the hundreds of innovations that occur every year in IBM labs.

Change is in the air

Airlines and airports face escalating costs, revenue growth constraints and an increasingly dissatisfied customer base. By offering passengers a highly differentiated experience and simultaneously enhancing its operational efficiency, the aviation industry can position itself to become and remain profitable in a volatile business climate.

Emerging automotive markets

The automotive markets of India and China are growing fast. But challenges arise at every turn. From manufacturing to research and development to building highways, both countries need a roadmap as they drive into their respective futures.

How It Works: Semiconductors

Data goes in and information comes out -- but do you really know how microchips work? This interactive explanation describes how the various parts of a microprocessor work together.

Corporate social responsibility

In a new IBM study, less than 25% of companies know their customer's CSR concerns. Here's why it matters.

How it works: recycling and refurbishing computers

What did you do with your old computer? IBM processes about 40,000 used notebooks and hard drives per week in our centers around the world. This can include inspection, repair and data scrubbing, then either complete refurbishment for resale or recycling into raw components. Here's how it works.