As a blog about the future of games business and technology, it might be interesting to see how games technology is being applied outside of traditional entertainment applications.  Two recent examples show how IBM is specifically looking at leveraging advances from game technologies in unrelated fields.

The first comes from the Consumer Electronics Show 2008.  IBM had a booth demo of one of our Business Partners, Broadcast International, which recently started using IBM Cell Broadband Engine-based Blade Servers (specifically the QS21) for video compression.  BusinessWeek's The Tech Beat wrote:

"Using software specifically designed for IBM's Cell Blade server, Broadcast International has developed compression that can take [15 megabits per second] down to less than 4 megabits, bringing internet streaming [of HDTV] within range on very fast connections."

The second example is IBM is partnering with the Mayo clinic to use software running on Cell blade servers to speed object recognition and increase image precision.  This was written about in both Medgadget, a medical tech blog, and Gizmodo.  This actually dovetails nicely onto a project using PS3 consoles as part of a grid computing exercise in protein folding to help find a cure for Alzheimer's.

Did I say two?  I meant three, but this one is much more closely related to games.  Another IBM CES booth demo was IBM Business Partner Emotiv Systems showing off technology that translates brain waves into commands to affect avatar behavior.  As Scientific American wrote:

"The applications of this sort of technology, as it continues to develop, could impact areas as disparate as the automotive industry and efforts to combat mental disorders such as autism."

Wow, there hasn't been a post here in a while, so time to kickstart an exciting 2008. Why exciting?  With all this talk of recession, isn't the Games Industry negatively impacted by slowdowns in consumer spending?

Perhaps in the short term, but don't tell that to Goldman Sachs.  As reported in the Hollywood Reporter on January 10, Goldman Sachs' M&E analyst Anthony Noto's pretty downbeat sector expectation was caveated: "…the Internet and video game businesses are among the few 'attractive' areas of the industry."

Don't tell Best Buy or other retailers, either.  A December 19 post by David Radd in GameDaily indicates that "…entertainment software sales were up nearly a quarter in comparable [Q3] same-store sales…nearly 20% of Best Buy's revenues."  Games also helped Microsoft and Nintendo of course.  A new NPD report on year-end sales figures, also discussed in Jim Goldman over at CNBC's TechCheck reported on January 17 a banner year for video games, with almost $18B up 43% from 2006.  Microsoft sold 1.26 million XBox 360s in December alone (just shy of first place Nintendo with 1.35 million), and it's Halo 3 came in 1st. 

This certainly makes IBM happy, too.  With our chips in all three next generation consoles, the 6.29 million Wii consoles, 4.62 million XBox 360 consoles and 2.56 million Sony PS3 consoles sold in 2007 led to a lot of microprocessor sales.

And we'll see the growing clout of the games industry continue to positively impact 2008, and not just in retail figures or consumer spending. The significant success of America's Army as both a recruitment tool AND game play shows how games and virtual worlds continue to expand into "Serious Games", useful for all sorts of non-traditional applications around recruitment, training, education, and collaboration.

IBM news from Consumer Electronics Show shows that technology developed for games is finding its way into areas like broadcasting and medical imaging.  Check out my separate posting on CES.  

A big thank you to our inimitable George Dolbier, who sent me some tantalizing tidbits that spurred me to write this post.