In their ongoing coverage of IBM Edge 2013, John Furrier and Dave Vellante spoke with Bernie Meyerson, IBM VP of Innovation. The three discussed new technological innovations, particularly concerning machine learning, collaboration and mobile.

Myerson asks Furrier and Vellante to imagine a point at which a machine has the same input/output as human beings. He envisions a future in which, machines employing the same senses of sight, touch, taste and smell as humans are commonplace. This, of course, has practical implications as Meyerson suggests artificial intelligence will be able to detect certain patient infections through scent. When asked if there had been a bottleneck in advancing such technologies, Meyer responds, “The impossible just takes a little longer.”

In furthering IBM’s own innovation model, Meyerson explains that collaboration plays an important role. Collective knowledge and skill-sharing is important “for many more reasons than just getting the answer,” according to Meyerson. He also believes collaboration is important in advancing the next generation of technologists because “it can’t just be a geezer fest.” Meyerson advises the new generation of technologists to “just go do it – if you think about it too much it aint gonna happen.” He suggests that this generation will also work more efficiently collectively as technological developments are usually the result of group efforts. He adds, “If you do something that blows the world away, there’s enough credit to last for everyone. I’ve seen siloe’d organization where they see it as competitive and its not, it’s a team sport.

Vellante inquires about innovation concerning IBM mobile. He suggests innovation will center on mobile security. So much sensitive information is shared via mobile, such as banking information, but mobile is not inherently secure. Going forward, Meyerson suggests technologists will “be able to develop APIs and an incredibly intelligent buffer of what’s coming in and what’s going out” based on behavior analytics. As a result, phones will have the ability to shut down if user behavior is seen as unusual.

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