IBM Works with Walt Disney Imagineering to Create a New Smarter Planet Exhibit

Edited from PRNewswire-FirstCall

IBM has unveiled a new experiential exhibit at Innoventions at Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort, which invites guests to discover the possibilities of building a smarter planet.

The exhibit is powered by a new Smarter Data Center, providing a real-life demonstration of optimized computing that reduces energy costs by up to 25 percent.

SmarterPlanet presented by IBM offers visitors to the park a “behind-the-scenes” glimpse of how technology is helping solve the world’s most complex problems — from reducing road traffic and city crime to improving food safety and local water supplies. The experience encourages guests to think about their individual role in creating a smarter planet as well as understand how smarter data centers are the heart of a more sustainable, technology-enabled world, officials said.

For example, hands-on interactive kiosks offer guests a “match” game that reveals societal and technological implications of creating a smarter planet. Guests will discover how more than two billion people are using mobile phones to open and use bank accounts for the first time; or that only 11 percent of the United States money supply is cash; or that by unplugging household appliance while not in use homeowners can save cash, up to $286 every year; or how smarter food systems track the temperatures of foods from one location to another to prevent spoilage.

From the same kiosks, guests can take a Smarter Planet poll and compare their answers with those of other visitors.

The exhibit also features Runtime, created by Walt Disney Imagineering, which transforms guests into personalized avatars as part of the video game experience. Players run, jump and dance through a timeline of IBM’s achievements in the history of computing, journeying from the Babbage computer, through vacuum tubes and chips and bits, to the Internet.

Guests can also email their personalized version of the game to any computer, extending the Runtime experience to their home.