Press release:

IBM and Vodafone Advance Smarter Home Initiative

Cloud enables control of "Internet of Things" in the home to manage heating, lighting, laundry via Vodafone's Mobile Wireless Network

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BERLIN - 31 Aug 2012: IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Vodafone today announced a collaboration to combine mobile communications and cloud computing for the remote management of ‘smart home’ appliances.

At the IFA consumer electronics event in Berlin this week, Vodafone and IBM will demonstrate the mobile management of a washing machine and other smart home devices that are connected by Vodafone’s Global M2M Platform running on IBM’s new SmartCloud Service Delivery Platform.

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technology makes home appliances more intelligent by connecting them wirelessly to the internet. This enables them to feed useful data back to the service provider or manufacturer to achieve a better customer experience through new functionality and enhanced services.

"The smart home market is now a reality and Vodafone is committed to delivering to it,” said Marc Tastayre, Vodafone M2M Global Business Development Manager. “Security is the first important step for connecting devices to the internet and the collaboration between IBM and Vodafone is putting in place an open, efficient and scalable solution for the consumer electronics industry that will enable it to successfully progress the creation of the ‘Internet of Things’.”

IBM and Vodafone anticipate that this M2M initiative could allow consumers to use their smartphones for a variety of remote activities including viewing their home's utility consumption; controlling security, heating and lighting systems; and activating home appliances such as washing machines. Additionally the initiative will enable manufacturers and service providers to collect data from appliances that can be used to inform product development and maintenance and provide better services to consumers.

"This collaboration is a great example of how cloud computing can be used for business innovation versus solely for IT efficiency purposes,” said IBM Telecommunications Industry General Manager Scott Stainken. “Cloud will increasingly be used in new ways that will provide enhanced consumer-centric experiences -- especially when combined with mobile communications.”

The IBM SmartCloud Service Delivery Platform provides a fully integrated, scalable cloud-based platform to give manufacturers a cost-effective and scalable way to manage appliances and to rapidly introduce related new consumer services. Vodafone’s Global M2M Platform offers appliance manufacturers the ability to easily and rapidly deploy managed and secure wireless connectivity to home gateways. By combining the platforms, the two companies will also provide the consumer electronics industry with an example of a truly global, open standards-based approach for Smarter Home connectivity and solutions.

To read more about IBM’s news at IFA, visit this Smarter Planet blog post

About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM has helped thousands of clients adopt cloud models and manages millions of cloud based transactions every day. IBM assists clients in areas as diverse as banking, communications, healthcare and government to build their own clouds or securely tap into IBM cloud-based business and infrastructure services. IBM is unique in bringing together key cloud technologies, deep process knowledge, a broad portfolio of cloud solutions, and a network of global delivery centers. For more information about IBM cloud solutions, visitwww.ibm.com/smartcloud. Follow us on Twitter @cloudchat and on our blog atwww.thoughtsoncloud.com.

About Vodafone
Vodafone is one of the world's largest mobile communications companies by revenue with approximately 406 million customers in its controlled and jointly controlled markets as of 30 June 2012. Vodafone currently has equity interests in over 30 countries across five continents and more than 40 partner networks worldwide. For more information, please visitwww.vodafone.com.

About Vodafone Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications
Vodafone Machine-to-Machine (M2M) connects previously isolated machines or devices wirelessly to the internet, delivering new functionality and enhanced services without the need for human intervention. Supported by over 20 years’ experience and 200 dedicated staff, Vodafone’s global M2M platform makes it easy for global businesses to centrally manage M2M deployments across multiple territories, with greater control and at a lower cost than previously possible.

Please visit: http://m2m.vodafone.com/home/

Follow us on twitter @Vodafone_M2M 

Smarter, Greener Campuses

IBM Helps Los Angeles Schools Create Smarter, Greener Campuses

Crowdsourcing lets students and staff speed repairs across 800 campuses from their mobile phones

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LAS VEGAS - 05 Mar 2012: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a new project to help the nation’s second largest school district become one of the greenest and most sustainable by making energy conservation and cost savings as easy as sending a text message.  

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is empowering its students, teachers and staff to identify maintenance issues such as leaky faucets and broken air conditioning units by sending text messages and photos through their mobile phones. A mobile reporting solution developed by IBM Business Partner CitySourced sends the photos and texts for analysis by IBM software that automatically shows staff where the problem is located using geographic information software from IBM Business Partner Esri.

LAUSD is the largest public school system in California and the second largest school district in the United States with 700,000 students. With more than 14,000 buildings spread out over 710 square miles, the district receives more than 300,000 maintenance service requests a year.

Within the first eight months of implementing the program LAUSD responded to more than 750 maintenance requests and have since surpassed 1,650 reports to date. LAUSD and CitySourced are scheduled to implement an outreach program to socialize the application at school sites in the second quarter of 2012. With the combination of word of mouth and the outreach program, LAUSD anticipates the number of reports to significantly rise in 2012.

“Each year we found we were spending too much time, money, and energy locating, and reporting a problem before we even had the chance to fix it,” says Danny Lu, business analyst, Los Angeles Unified School District. “By finding a more efficient way to report and locate needed repairs, we are able to respond faster to serve our campuses. The best part is that the solution is at the fingertips of most everyone on campus.”

Prior to the crowdsourcing app, LAUSD relied on faculty, staff, students and parents to report maintenance issues with the campus plant manager, requiring the manager to decipher and pinpoint the failing unit before submitting the call to the Maintenance & Operations Service Call Desk and routing to the appropriate personnel to solve the problem. With the advent of the mobile application, reports are submitted directly to the Maintenance & Operations Service Call Desk. 

“Working with IBM, CitySourced is empowering faculty, students and citizens of the Los Angeles school districts to improve their communities by keeping them cleaner, safer and more efficient,” said Jason Kiesel, Founder and chief executive officer, CitySourced.

A recent Nielson research report showed smartphone usage is surging, especially in the United States where 38 percent of the population owns a smartphone and has the ability to send text or picture messages. By taking advantage of the growing connectivity of the population and partnering with companies like CitySourced and Esri, IBM is utilizing data collected by people to create smarter, more efficient cities and infrastructure.

“People now have the ability to act as living sensors for things they witness in their day-to-day lives,” said Dave Bartlett, vice president, Industry Solutions, IBM. “Through these partnerships, we are arming people with the ability to report problems that impact the efficiency of an ecosystem such as cities, buildings and campuses. And, through IBM analytics, we enable organizations to act on information that will make them more efficient and successful.”

The CitySourced app reports maintenance issues directly to IBM Maximo® Asset Management software.

For more photos and information on news at the IBM PULSE conference in Las Vegas, visit:http://www.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/37001.wss.

For more information, visit: www.ibm.com/tivoli/maximo

For more information about CitySourced, visit:http://www.citysourced.com/default.aspx

For more information about Esri, visit: http://www.esri.com/ 

Making Energy Data More Accessible

From the blog of the U.S. Dept. of Energy:

Taking Steps to Make Energy Data More Accessible

February 7, 2012 

Matthew Loveless

Data Integration Specialist, Office of Public Affairs

What does this mean for me?

• Energy data is becoming more open and accessible, and that means better data access for software developers.

From economic projections and fuel costs to renewable energy potential estimates and power outage reports, the Energy Department produces vast amounts of data. These data are most valuable when they are being used to produce reports, analyses, tools, and applications, and so it is no surprise that we are always looking for ways to make energy data more accessible.

That is why we’re excited about the growth of tools for making energy data available via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). APIs allow web and mobile applications to access updated energy data in a variety of formats, and often simplify the process of developing a data-driven application.

The Socrata Open Data API (SODA) is one of these new tools. Data.gov makes this service available to federal agencies, providing a platform for interacting with data online and connecting that data to applications via the API. We’re just getting started with hosting energy data on SODA, but one example is the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) State Energy Data System. You can access the SODA version here, and you should also check out the extensive analysis and documentation provided by EIA on their website.

OpenEI is another example of Energy Department web services, this one sponsored by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. OpenEI hosts a variety of U.S. and international energy data, with a focus on renewables. In particular, OpenEI contains a database of incentives and policies that encourage renewable energy generation and energy efficiency, and this database is available to developers.  For example, the team at DSIRE collects this information, but it also appears on Energy.gov via OpenEI’s data services.

The national labs are also involved in efforts to make Energy Department data more accessible. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has launched their Developer Network to help software developers access and use renewable energy and alternative fuel data. Any aspiring coder can sign up for an API key and start using NREL’s first-rate data on electricity, solar energy, or alternative fuels.

As the year goes on, we’ll be making more and more data sets available via these services, continuing our mission to make Energy Department data as open, and as useful, as possible.