Korean Air's fleet of 139 passenger planes carries millions of passengers across the globe every year. Ensuring each plane is safe and well-maintained is a priority. When Korean Air addressed line maintenance issues with its fleet, its team of 2,000-plus maintenance employees has historically had to pore over troves of maintenance records to find crucial data on everything from how to fix an important plane part to a plane's maintenance history. "Maintenance issues represent a substantial cost to an airline--to the tune of 28 percent of the total operating cost," said Rob Ranieri, Vice President and Partner, Global Industry Offering Leader, Travel and Transportation at IBM. To remedy this tedious and costly practice, Korean Air recently enlisted IBM Watson Explorer to compile and analyze data from various sources, including technician notes, material cost data and in-flight incident history.

"What commonly happens in the invention process is that people are driven by the constant irritations and annoyances of life," Hobson said. "And traffic lights appear to have a malicious intent whenever you approach them." Waiting at a red light, he noticed a tremendous amount of traffic in one direction but nobody in the other. Yet the traffic lights still obediently kept to their programmed pace of red, yellow, green. Worse: the light tried to accommodate non-existent pedestrians, further delaying things.

Home is where that independence and quality of life can be realized. The aging population wants to safely live in their own homes as long as possible. People with disabilities want a home designed for their specific needs. Ultimately, a more accessible home will help people feel connected and valued, and reduce loneliness. "My in-laws just turned 87 and 91, and my family is determining how to best care for them," said Scott Gerard, Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM Research.

The British glove manufacturer Cornelia James is often in the public eye. Since 1979, it has provided gloves by royal appointment to the Queen of England, and more recently it has dressed megastars including Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Madonna. All those high-profile customers are great for publicity, but nobody drives sales quite like Kate Middleton, said Genevieve James, the company's creative director. "We get far more of a spike in sales when someone like Kate wears them. But when it's somebody like the Duchess of Cambridge, the public, particularly in the US, can relate to that," James told IBM. James first confirmed that fact in 2012 when, at a ceremony for Remembrance Sunday, Middleton wore a pair of Cornelia James' merino wool gloves.

Lucy may be a VR character, but she doesn't act like one. Like any friend, she remembers what you've done and uses that information to inform how she talks with you. She can express a full range of emotions. And she's as good at hanging out as she is going on adventures. Initially, Lucy was designed largely to follow a script and respond to viewer actions.