Mark Albertson
Latest from Mark Albertson
Cloud and data science now driving food industry, say analysts
The same technology dynamics that drive other industries are impacting how we grow, distribute and consume food as well. That was one of the key messages to emerge from this year’s FOOD IT: From Fork to Farm event in Mountain View, California. “It’s really fun to see the consistent themes that we see over and over – ...
A case study in food IT: How Campbell uses data to drive sustainability
The Campbell Soup Co., one of the longest-operating food brands in the U.S., maintains data on every load of tomatoes that comes into its processing plants, and has been collecting this information over the past five years. But the application of data science to farming and produce processing is fairly new, and Campbell is working ...
Meet Cheetah, Baxter and ElliQ: The robot revolution is about to arrive
After decades of promises of autonomous machines, robotics is finally poised to transform life and business as we know it, from manufacturing to elder care. That’s the consensus of scientific researchers, entrepreneurs and corporate executives who gathered this week at the TechCrunch Robotics conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. If there was an overriding message from the ...
Will tech tools give us cooking superpowers?
When the first Internet-connected refrigerator was introduced, it cost $20,000 and consumers greeted the new product more as an oddity than a practical device for the home. But now that price points have come down and home technologies are becoming standard, consumers are warming up quickly to what the digitized kitchen can provide. “Our research ...
Embrace IT, say food and agriculture experts
A recent restaurant association study forecasts a shortage of 200,000 line cooks over the next 10 years. The average age of the American farmer is 65, but a younger, tech-savvy generation is coming. These are just two of the trends facing the food and agriculture industry as a new wave of innovation, involving Internet of Things, ...
You are what you eat, and throw away, at Google
After a lengthy career working for Westin and Starwood Hotels, Michiel Bakker (pictured) suddenly got a call from Google Inc. six years ago asking whether he might be interested in a conversation about its food program. “That piqued my interest,” said Bakker. “I’d never heard of their food program and how they were running it.” The ...
Tech-enabled consumer will drive food producers, say analysts
The balance of power in the food industry is shifting to tech-driven consumers, a major theme that was on full display during the opening day of this year’s FOOD IT: Fork to Farm event in Mountain View, California. “It’s really now the tech-enabled consumer and what they want to eat, like everything else that’s being so ...
Hotels.com embraces data-driven culture
Whether you are looking for a luxury hotel on a secluded beach or a place to stay in midtown Manhattan that won’t break the bank, the process of sorting through options and booking online can seem pretty straightforward. But behind most travel websites today is a complex data engine that pays close attention to what ...
Author goes beyond the bells and whistles of big data buzz
As big data and machine learning tools become essential for modern business, the primary goal is no longer predicting the likelihood of making a sale. It’s now a matter of increasing the likelihood that a customer will buy. This key distinction forms the essential thesis behind former Columbia University Professor Eric Siegel’s book, “Predictive Analytics: ...
Spark doubles down on streaming, data warehousing and deep learning
The Apache Spark community has been wrestling with a wide range of big data challenges in information technology, and Databricks Inc. (which was founded by Spark’s creators), is taking steps to address the enterprise need for machine learning and speedier data processing. “Rather than giving people the fish, you give them the tools to fish,” ...
