Tag Archives: gadgets

Tom Banks – Liberty Speedway and RC Cars – IBM Innovate 2014, Orlando, FL



In this interview, Nick talks to Tom Banks, the Technical Evangelist for WebSphere Application Server Liberty Profile. Tom might have the coolest job, as he tries to find new and innovative ways to show off IBM technologies to the masses and has done so with a car that can be driven via your smartphone.

The car has sensors to prevent it from crashing, speed limiters and more, and it is all run off of Raspberry Pi. The application is so compact that it only takes up a small percentage of the resources of the mini-computer.

Video by Nicholas DiMeo of F5 Live and PLuGHiTz Live.


Watson – PitStop Meetup – IBM Innovate 2014, Orlando, FL



In this second part of a two-part PitStop Meetup, we move to Watson, IBM’s deep learning and cognitive reasoning technology. The experts discuss several different fields where Watson could improve life. This is the tech that not only has solved problems in the healthcare and finance industries, but has given us amazing food concoctions out of the by using cognitive cooking.

Related reading on deep learning

Video by Nicholas DiMeo of F5 Live and PLuGHiTz Live.


Internet of Things – PitStop Meetup – IBM Innovate 2014, Orlando, FL



In this first part of a two-part PitStop Meetup, the Internet of things was the point of conversation. From the estimated 20 billion possible connected devices to how to actually use the data these devices are giving you, it was definitely an interesting discussion. Where are we now? What is the future of our data and devices? All of that is talked about in this segment.

Video by Nicholas DiMeo of F5 Live and PLuGHiTz Live.


Attendee Reactions – IBM Innovate 2014, Orlando, FL



In this short video from IBM Innovate 2014, we wanted to ask a few attendees what they thought about the convention and what they learned or hoped to take away from it. For Nick, while there was no 3D printer to take away, there is butternut squash BBQ sauce on the horizon!

Video by Nicholas DiMeo of F5 Live and PLuGHiTz Live.


FRC Team 1649 EMS – PitStop Meetup – IBM Innovate 2014, Orlando, FL



Long standing fans of our F5 Live and its events will know that seeing a FIRST team at IBM Innovate 2014 was quite refreshing for Nick! FRC Team 1649 EMS was the center of attention for a PitStop Meetup hosted by Veronica Belmont. The team discussed its recent successes in the past two seasons of FIRST competitions and some of the members talked about their plans after high school, which include wanting to become an engineer. There is a lot of crossover between robotics and software development, and that point is really driven home by this panel.

Video by Nicholas DiMeo of F5 Live and PLuGHiTz Live.


Sky Matthews – Connected Car, Jaguar F-Type – IBM Innovate 2014, Orlando, FL



A seat in a custom Jaguar F-Type led us to speaking with Sky Matthews about the connected car and the Internet of things. Expanding beyond just a buzzword from a few years ago, Matthews digs deep into what the future could hold for all connected devices around the planet. He also talks about the Jaguar and the potential of what it can do. From advanced notifications about traffic and weather conditions, to giving you real-time information about things happening inside your house or place of work, your car could have the potential to be just one of many devices providing you with useful information at all times.

Video by Nicholas DiMeo of F5 Live and PLuGHiTz Live.


Clinton Bonner – topcoder – IBM Innovate 2014, Orlando, FL



[topcoder] has been around longer than most “Top” shows you might have seen on TV and in fact, has over 600,000 people signed up to the site from all over the world. Their mission? To compete in challenges in different aspects of software design. The site also has a community aspect where members improve their skills, demonstrate and gain reward for their expertise, and provide the industry with objective insight on new and emerging technologies.

One of the cool things about topcoder is that the site launches challenges that require an extremely fast turnaround. So fast that they actually launched one during IBM Innovate 2014 that lasted only 22 hours. The task was to work with a Twitter data scraper to create beautiful and useful experience. Developers everywhere took this challenge head-on and the results of their efforts were very impressive!

Clinton Bonner from topcoder talks about all of that, as well as some really cool things the site’s members have created.

Video by Nicholas DiMeo of F5 Live and PLuGHiTz Live.


Meg Swanson – BlueMix Overview – IBM Innovate 2014, Orlando, FL



Meg Swanson, Marketing Director with IBM’s BlueMix cloud-based development platform, talks with us before the show floor opens for the day about BlueMix as a whole. She gives a brief overview and then gives a call to action for developers who might be interested to try out the software. In this segment, Swanson says that BlueMix has been really well received by almost everyone who has tried it, with IBM’s support team rapidly making requested features and changes available to developers based on dev feedback.

Video by Nicholas DiMeo of F5 Live and PLuGHiTz Live.


Gene Kim – The Phoenix Project – IBM Innovate 2014, Orlando, FL



Gene Kim, former CTO of Tripwire, and author and researcher of “The Phoenix Project” was gracious enough to talk with us at IBM Innovate 2014, where he was a special guest and keynote speaker. Kim dives into a few different points of his reasons for being at Innovate, along with a couple of funny anecdotes and comparisons.

Kim also touches on the principles of developer operations and says that his passion is to turn horses into unicorns, something you have to listen to in order to understand what he means.

Video by Nicholas DiMeo of F5 Live and PLuGHiTz Live.


Sanjay Joshi – Cloud Development with BlueMix – IBM Innovate 2014, Orlando, FL



Nick talks with Sanjay Joshi with jStart Cloud Projects and Client Outreach – Emerging Technologies Software Group IBM. In this discussion, Joshi speaks on designing secure applications in IBM’s new platform-as-a-service, BlueMix.

Sanjay also touches upon some interesting projects he’s working on and things to watch for.

Video by Nicholas DiMeo of F5 Live and PLuGHiTz Live.