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1 2008 ANNUAL REPORT
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Role in HPHP Labs (HPL) is the exploratory and advanced research organization for Hewlett-Packard. We conduct high-impact research in technical areas that address the most important challenges and opportunities our customers and society face.
We create business value for HP through technology transfer. By working closely with our partners in HP’s business units—Technology Solutions, Printing and Imaging, and Personal Systems—we commercialize innovations that result from our research.
We recognize that HPL is part of a larger innovation ecosystem and that, if we want our work to have significant scientific and business impact, we must lead, listen to and collaborate with participants in this community. To this end, we pursue an “Open Innovation” research approach, in which we leverage relationships with universities, government entities, customers and partners to accelerate our research results.
HPL’s ImpactHPL’s researchers solve interesting and important customer problems. In the last decade, our innovations included:• Utility computing: virtualization and automation
innovations that enable enterprises to optimize use of IT resources distributed around the world.
• Halo telepresence: an incredibly realistic video and audio experience that enables real-time, multi-party virtual collaboration over a dedicated high-speed network.
• Memristor: proof that the “memory resistor”—the fourth fundamental element of electronic circuitry—exists, which will lead to dramatically low-power computer systems and more efficient electronic memory.
HP Labs Around the WorldHP Labs operates in locations around the world: Palo Alto, USA; Bangalore, India; Beijing, China; Bristol, UK; Haifa, Israel; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Tokyo, Japan.
Welcome to the HP Labs FY08 Annual Report.
HP Labs, HP’s central research team, is chartered with enabling new opportunities for HP through technical innovation and scientific breakthroughs. Throughout our 40-year history, we have taken fresh ideas and turned them into new products and businesses that serve our customers and make the world a better place.
In FY08—the months from November, 2007, through October, 2008—our organization accomplished a tremendous amount. We completed our five-year strategic plan, initiated several dozen research programs in eight key technology areas, strengthened our partnerships with customers and academia, and created significant business value to HP through commercialization of our technologies.
Our goals at HP Labs are simple:•Advancethestateoftheartintechnology•CreatebusinessvalueforHP•EngageandinfluenceothersinITecosystem
to forward our shared interests
At the heart of our success are our people, the embodiment of innovation. You will meet several of them throughout this report. I encourage you to get to know our team better through the HPL website, where each of our researchers has a personal page describing his or her areas of interest (http://www.hpl.hp.com/people).
We at HP Labs are committed to engaging with everyone in the IT ecosystem—customers, industrial partners, academia, government, venture capitalists and many others—to advance the technology industry. To this end, we invite you to join our Open Innovation Communityandcommentonthisdocumentand our areas of research via the HPL website: http://www.hpl.hp.com
I look forward to hearing your comments.
Prith Banerjee SVP Research, HP,
and Director, HP Labs
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HP Labs is proud to employ some of the industry’s most influential researchers and scientists. Members of our technical staff include global leaders in areas such as nanotechnology, computer algorithms, data management, digital signal processing, data compression, and imaging and color science.
Among our approximately 500 researchers, about 60% are PhDs. Collectively, they are named on thousands of patents, are published in dozens of top-tier technical journals and have won some of technology’s most significant honors. In fact, 10 of our researchers are Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), five are Fellows of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and two are members of the National Academy of Engineering. They have won prestigious international prizes such as the Turing Award, the Hamming Award and the Feynman Award.
High Impact ResearchAt HP Labs, our greatest opportunities come from working together in large teams that focus our efforts on a shared vision or goal. To this end, we have chosen eight technical themes that align our work: Analytics, Cloud, Content Transformation, Digital Commercial Print, Immersive Interaction, Information Management, Intelligent Infrastructure, and Sustainability.
The next section of this report describes our viewpoint and research approach in each of these areas in greater detail.
To execute this research agenda, we have organized HPL into research Labs, within which reside large- and medium-sized projects that support our eight research themes. About 60% of Labs researchers work on our 20-30 large-scale projects.
To ensure we are investing in the most important technical areas and making the most of our resources, we have established internal review boards to help guide the process of converting discoveries into commercial offerings. These Advisory Boards, which meet bi-annually, comprise technologists and executives from HPL and HP’s businesses. Researchers and research managers put forward proposals for research projects to these boards. The Boards also annually review all approved projects.
Sustaining a healthy pipeline of innovation is important to HP’s ongoing success. About 20% of our research projects end annually, either in
Robert TarjanPh.D.,ComputerScience Business Optimization Lab HP Senior Fellow
RESEARCH INTERESTS | Throughout his career, Tarjan has made significant contributions to computer science in the areas of data structures, algorithms and security. Currently,Tarjanisapplyinghisexpertiseinthe analytics and operations research fields, as well as teaching at Princeton University.
SPOTLIGHT | Tarjan received the Turing Award—computer science’s highest honor—with John Hopcroft in 1986, “for fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures.” HeisanACMFellowandwinnerofprizesincluding the inaugural Nevanlinna Prize in InformationScience,ACM’sParisKanellakisAward in Theory and Practice, and the Blaise PascalMedalinMathematicsandComputerScience.
successful transfer to an organization which can support commercialization, or through our project review cycle. We re-invest released resources in new projects.
In addition, 20% of each organization’s budget and 20% of each researcher’s time is classified as discretionary, allowing for work on exploratory seed projects that may eventually become formal research proposals.
Technology TransferWe pursue business value at every stage of our research process, from conception of ideas, through the Advisory Board approval process, through the transfer of the technology to a revenue-generating organization. Our partners in HP’s businesses actively participate in our projects, contributing critical customer insights and technical feedback.
Once a specific technical approach has been demonstrated successfully at HPL, there are a number of ways in which HP can derive value from our work. In most cases, our innovations become products or solutions for HP, commercialized by existing businesses or instigating the creation of a new business. Sometimes we apply innovation to internal processes to reduce operational costs.
When neither of these options is a fit for our technology, we pursue licensing the intellectual property we have created, or we use our results as input to future research projects.
Open InnovationAs leaders in the technology industry, we not only create breakthroughs, we also work with partners in our innovation network to advance our common technology vision. Open Innovation projects underway include joint research with universities worldwide, research programs co-funded by governments, and collaborations with customers. During 2008, we funded 45 research projects in 35 universities, in 14 countries.
HPL has a tradition of establishing major industry and academic consortia such as PlanetLab (http://www.planet-lab.org) and Gelato Federation (http://www.gelato.org). One of our most important current endeavors is building a shared, open Cloud Research Testbed called Open Cirrus (http://www.opencirrus.org) with industry, government and academic partners.
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analyticsAnalytics describes HP Labs’ research on developing the models, tools, algorithms and platforms that drive informed, highly effective, repeatable and consistent decision making. Fundamentally, our analytics research aims to apply mathematic and scientific methodologies to large, complex decision processes.
Research in business analytics can enable organizations to inform decision-making about their internal operations, their customers, their sales and supply chain, in order to drive operational efficiencies, enable new service capabilities, and improve the customer experience.
The challenge analytics and information management address is to aggregate data from different sources to create an unprecedented level of intelligence on which to base business decisions. The key is to capture and process data in the unstructured format, which is data lying not in databases but in a variety of files that include email, word processing documents, slide decks, collaboration sites, and wikis.
Research ContributionsHP Labs research is focused on discovering patterns of behavior from the evidence captured by a variety of data sources and types, and on optimizing models that reduce the complexity of decision-making. HPL’s specific research topics include:• Security analytics: bringing economic,
mathematical, and cognitive modeling to bear on systems understanding.
• Workforce optimization: matching uncertain labor supply and demand, and developing new scalable methods for optimization to improve utilization and margin on services.
• Sourcing optimization: developing and applying analytic techniques (e.g., mechanism design; optimization) for procurement and sourcing.
• Services analytics: design and pricing for new services, and development of new incentive structures and mechanism by creating and applying customer choice models, game theory and product reliability models.
Bank of the FutureLedbyMohamedDekhil,researchersintheIntelligentInformationManagementLab worked closely with HP’s Financial Services Industry team to open an HP BankingInnovationCenterinHPLabsPalo Alto in November 2008. Focusing initiallyoncustomerexperience,staffproductivity, efficiency and infrastructure in bank branches, the center provides an environment where financial institutions cancollaboratewithHPtoexploreretailbanking challenges and opportunities. Labs innovations showcased in the HP Branch Transformation solution help customers drive retail business growth and streamline operations.
“EngagingwithHPattheBankingInnovationCentergaveustheopportunitytoexploretogetherhowwecanapply innovative technologies across our self-service channels to build a competitive offering for our customers,” saysPolNavarro,HeadofChannelsandInnovation at Banco Sabadell.
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Cirpriano (Pano) SantosPh.D., Operations Research Business Optimization Lab
RESEARCH INTERESTS | Santos’ expertiseisinmathematicalmodelingtosolvecomplex
engineering and business problems for HP, which has 140,000
employees in Services delivery roles. He is part of the Workforce
Optimization Project, which is looking at how to automate matching the right people with the right skill at the right time and place, and at the
right cost with the right project.
SPOTLIGHT | Santos was recognized amongstthe2008“MostImportant
Hispanics in Technology & Business” byHispanicEngineer&Information
TechnologyMagazine,anannualaward given to the most influential
Hispanics in the U.S.
• Marketing optimization: developing predictive models of customer behavior and improved algorithms to enhance customer loyalty and to optimize marketing interactions with individual customers.
• Analytics for personalization: developing robust, privacy-preserving, scalable information aggregation algorithms and platforms to create highly personalized user experiences in the consumer space.
• Unstructured data analysis to enhance decision-making and optimize resources.
cloudCloud research focuses on delivering technologies that enable a computing vision of Everything-as-a-Service: billions of users, accessing millions of services, through thousands of service providers, over millions of servers, processing exabytes of data, delivered through terabytes of network traffic.
Cloud technologies enable customers to access compute infrastructure, applications and services without owning a dedicated datacenter. Users access Cloud services via simple Internet interfaces, anytime, anywhere, and developers improve services quickly based on real-time customer feedback.
Delivering Cloud services requires an enterprise-grade secure, scalable infrastructure. The Cloud development environment should facilitate enterprise application developers to create secure, multi-tenant applications which are horizontally scalable to millions of users. Cloud services should be delivered, updated and even combined in a seamless user experience.
Research ContributionsIn developing a comprehensive Cloud stack, from infrastructure to services, HP Labs is helping build a future where billions of end users will be able to access millions of secure, affordable computing and application services from anywhere. Our Cloud research efforts focus on creating:• Secure enterprise-grade hosted infrastructure on
which to run Cloud services.• A new programming paradigm that will make
it easy to develop secure, multi-tenant, scalable enterprise Cloud services.
Open Cirrus Cloud Research Test Bed
In July, HP Labs, Intel and Yahoo! an-nounced the formation of an internet-scale,
open-source, global testing environment designed to encourage research on the software, data center management and hardwareissuesassociatedwithCloud
computing,aswellasresearchofCloudapplicationsandservices.OpenCirrus(http://www.opencirrus.org) consists of
six“centersofexcellence,”runbythethree companies and their partners at Infocomm Development Authority
of Singapore (IDA), the University ofIllinoisatUrbana-Champaign,
andtheKarlsruheInstituteofTechnology.EachcenterhostsaCloudcomputinginfrastructurewith 1,000 to 4,000 processor
cores. Researchers and research institutes around the world may
apply to use the test bed for their own projects.
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Self-Aligning Imprint Lithography (SAIL) for Flexible DisplaysResearch contributionHPL’s SAIL technology enables the large-scale manufactureofflexibleelectronicdisplays,ata lower cost and with greater functionality. The SAIL team solved sub-micron-scale alignment and patterning challenges so that the elec-tronic components of displays can be printed onlargerollsofflexiblesubstrates.
Business impactIn 2008, HPL demonstrated new manufactur-ingtechniquesforflexibledisplayswithindustrypartnersincludingtheFlexibleDisplayCenteratArizonaStateUniversity,DuPontTeijinFilmsandEInk.HPSAILtechnologyisoneexampleofthetech-nologies available for licensing from the HP Intellectual Property Licensing Group.
SpotlightSAIL’sawardsincludetheMerckAward for Outstanding Scientific ContributiontotheDisplayTechnology,theIDTechExPrintedElectronicsAwardforTechnicaldevelopmentinManufacturing2008, and Wired magazine’s “Top Technology Breakthroughs of 2008.”
• An automated operating environment that will make it easy manage the deployment and upgrading of Cloud applications.
• An ecosystem where users can discover and combine various Cloud services to achieve their personal or business needs.
• New Cloud services that disrupt traditional markets and offer rich, dynamic experiences, such as MagCloud.HP is also a leader in the Open Cirrus Cloud
Research Test Bed.People and enterprises will have access to an
unprecedented breadth of services and IT resources as a result of HPL’s research.
content transformationContent Transformation describes the seamless transfer of content between physical and digital media, and the access to content wherever customers desire. HPL’s research seeks to enable a complete convergence of physical and digital information that provides users with new, intuitive, powerful ways of interacting with information.
The exponential growth of published content—print and digital—is changing the way people access and interact with information. Content creators and consumers are demanding more personalization, more channels and timely access to information.
Several challenges impede the convergence of physical and digital information. Content is not simultaneously easy to find, access and repurpose. Displays are cumbersome, power-hungry and fragile. It is hard to capture information from hand annotations to printed pages. Within the enterprise, the movement of content between repositories is awkward, time consuming and can slow down business decision-making.
Research ContributionsHP Labs is developing technologies and services that will significantly improve how users interact with their print and digital content, such as web applications, flexible display surfaces and intelligent software for managing content. Our research focuses on:• New display technologies that are unbreakable,
conformable, ultra-thin and lightweight, with the look and feel of paper.
Parthasarathy (Partha) RanganathanPh.D.,ElectricalandComputerEngineering ExascaleComputingLab
RESEARCH INTERESTS | Ranganathan works in system architecture and manageability, power-efficiency design, system modelingandevaluation.Currently,heleadsExascaleDatacenterproject,whichpursuesthenext1000xperformancegainindatacenters by architectural innovations that decrease power consumption and cost, and simplify manageability and reliability.
SPOTLIGHT | In addition to being granted the “Rice University OutstandingYoungEngineeringAlumnus” award, Ranganathan co-authored papers accepted at the top four conferences in computer architecture this year. One paper wasrecognizedinIEEEMicro“TopPicksfromComputerArchitectureConferences,”whichhonored2008’s 12 most significant computer architecture research publications. In 2007, Ranganathan was named one of the world’s top young innovators byMITTechnologyReview.
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Charge RollerResearch contribution
TheChargeRollerisanewandinnovativecharging technique that allows liquid
electrophotography(LEP)pressesliketheHP Indigo to reach much higher speeds
without requiring a larger print engine. The technology makes presses easier to maintain
and greener, featuring 100 times less Ozone emission than previous offerings.
This is the first application of charge rollers to high-speed production presses.
Business impactTheChargeRollerhasbeen
implemented in HP’s in the series III LEPpresses.ItgivesHPpressesa
significant market advantage and is protected by our patented current-
injection technique.
• The automation of extracting descriptive tags from media to facilitate the organization and repurposing of images, video and audio media.
• Intelligent document cleanup and extraction of handwritten data—notes and annotations—from paper to digital form, significantly enhancing how users interact with print content.
• Making live interactive documents a focal point for enterprise processes and in doing so making enterprise content more accessible to a wider variety of business applications and users.
• Delivering content management as a Cloud service to SMB and enterprise customers, across many domains and industries.Customers from consumer to enterprise will be
able to use their content more flexibly, efficiently and creatively as a result of HPL’s research.
digital commercial printDigital Commercial Print describes the transformation from inflexible, manual mass production printing processes to flexible, customized, on-demand printing processes which are enabled by new digital technologies that enable lower cost, higher quality commercial printing.
Over the past decade, the commercial print industry has been consolidating and evolving from a manufacturing industry to a services industry. Print shops are demanding increased speed, lower cost and ease of customization for print runs, which digital commercial print technology has the potential to deliver. Yet today, only about 10% of commercial print pages are printed digitally.
Several key factors will influence the broader adoption of digital technologies. First, quality and cost-effectiveness of digital printing must be equal to, or better than, traditional printing. There is a need for greater automation, improved error handing and reduced costs with respect to color printing. Additionally, commercial printers and their customers are looking for more flexible and less wasteful print solutions that offer increased business and consumer value.
Research ContributionsHP Labs is investing in technology innovations that will provide low-unit print cost, high print quality and high production rates. To achieve this, we have chosen four key research topics to focus on: print process, data path, color and job creation.
Bernardo A. HubermanPh.D., Physics
Director,SocialComputingLab HP Senior Fellow
RESEARCH INTERESTS | Huberman is a pioneer in the rapidly-developing
field of research termed the “EconomicsofAttention.”Heis
also recognized for contributions to understanding the evolution
of the web, designing economic mechanisms for harvesting reliable
knowledge, information sciences and theoretical physics.
SPOTLIGHT | Huberman, whose research is featured regularly inpublicationsincludingIEEEComputer,Proceedingsofthe
National Academy of Sciences (USA),Communicationsofthe
ACMandJournalofInformationScience, is a Fellow of the American
Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as a Stanford
University faculty member. He has been honored with the 1990 CECOIAprizeinEconomicsand
ArtificialIntelligence,theIBMPrizeoftheSocietyforComputational
Economics,andtheHorizonAwardfor Innovation.
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HP Labs research will deliver new digital print processes that generate consistent commercial-grade throughput, putting digital commercial print on par with traditional print in both cost and quality. Our work around data path—a collection of functional units that perform data processing operations—will enable more efficient processing of the massive data streams associated with digital printing. Research related to self-calibrating color processes and more intuitive color rendering will capitalize on the color market opportunity. And, finally, we are developing automated solutions for the creation and management of print jobs, eliminating bottlenecks and costs associated with small print runs.
Commercial print shops will be able to quickly provide their customers with customized, high-quality collateral as a result of HPL’s research.
immersive interactionImmersive Interaction means delivering a radically simplified user experience, where human interaction through and with technology becomes seamless and intuitive.
Around the world, people desire to be connected to, and engaged with, their co-workers, customers, friends, families, and other social communities—whenever and wherever they choose. Users expect technology to be easy to use, reliable, context aware, and personalized. Users also want technology to serve as the transparent enabler to an engaging experience, allowing people to immerse themselves in their online content or activity.
Developing immersive and intuitive interactions between users and technology provides several opportunities for innovation. For example, video conferencing can be simplified and made affordable. Input devices can be more natural and expressive. Services delivered to mobile devices can be more intelligent and context-aware. Web services can facilitate truly personalized experiences for everyone.
Research ContributionsHP Labs is working on radically simplifying user technology experiences through intuitive interfaces, collaboration and contextual services. Our research will enable:• Seamless high-quality video and audio
collaboration across multiple locations—office,
Nina BhattiPh.D.,ComputerScience MultimediaInteractionand Understanding Lab
RESEARCH INTERESTS | Bhatti specializes in mobile consumer applications, applied imaging, networking, and end-to-end system performance. She led the research teamthatinventedMobileColorMatching,atechnologythatusesnovelimagingalgorithmsexecutedvia cell phone cameras to allow consumers to match colors, including makeup shades, on-the-go.
SPOTLIGHT |CorporateBoardmagazine honored Bhatti among 2008’s “Top 50 Women in Technology,” for her innovative technical work, which is driven by customer-insights and sharp business acumen. Bhatti also serves on the advisory board of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and co-leads HPL’s Technical Women’s Group.
MagCloud.comResearch contributionMagCloudisaCloudservicethatenablesanyone to self-publish a high-quality, commercially-printed magazine orders which are fulfilled on-demand. The technology brings creators, consumers and advertisers together in a new marketplace that improves thequalityofpersonalexpression,createsnovel opportunities for self-publishing, and makes print more personal.
Business impactCurrentlyanincubationinHP’sImagingandPrintingGroup,MagCloudhasbeenlive in private beta since June 2008. Consumerresponse,particularlyintheblog-o-sphere,hasbeenextremelypositive.
SpotlightMagCloudhasbeennominatedforWeb Application of the Year for the 2008 .net Awards. HP Labs relies onMagCloudforhardcopyprintproduction of this Annual Report.
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home, mobile and Halo videoconferencing studio—over any network.
• Radically simple user interfaces—using stylus, touch, speech, hand gestures, and even facial expressions and gaze—that make user interaction with technology natural, personalized and enjoyable.
• Pervasive media experiences that serve up the right content at the right moment, utilizing location, real-world images, bio-sensing and proximity to determine context.
• Web services that are personalized and simplified, so that they can be conveniently consumed in the mobile environment by non-tech-savvy users.People will be able to connect to one another and
their local environment more simply and naturally as a result of HPL’s research.
information managementInformation Management comprises technologies that address the need to turn enormous and rapidly increasing amounts of enterprise information into relevant business insight.
Today, exabytes of digital information are created, captured and replicated, and it is complex and time-consuming to manage and exploit information at this massive scale. Enterprises demand technologies that deliver speed, agility, competitive differentiation and compliance, and their employees expect to extract business insights from rich information resources quickly.
Managing information provides opportunities for innovation in acquiring, organizing and storing data, as well as capabilities to address auditing, policy enforcement and security. Opportunities also exist in exploiting information for valuable, actionable business insights.
Research ContributionsHP Labs’ goal is to deliver innovations that ultimately simplify access across the full spectrum of enterprise information and provide users with tools that will allow timely access to critical data and convert information to business value. Our intent is to make information management easier and less expensive, reduce risk from regulatory non-compliance, and increase employee productivity and accelerate business decision making.
Philip StentonPh.D.,ComputationalModelsofStereoVision ResearchManager,PervasiveComputingLab
RESEARCH INTERESTS |Stenton’sexpertiseis in managing mobile and appliance computing projects. Stenton currently
managesthePervasiveMediaProject,whichdevelops technologies to enable higher value services that are tuned to the user’s situation
andsodeliverthebestexperience.
SPOTLIGHT | Stenton co-led the formation of thePervasiveMediaStudioincentralBristol,U.K.,andactsasitsinauguralDirector.The
project engages creatives, technologists, businesses, entrepreneurs and academics to
build a whole new genre of media developed around real-world, non-linear, interactive experiences.Sinceitsopeningin2008,
participants have developed a number of innovativemediatoolsandexperiences,
such as The Sensory Symptom, an interactive physicalexperimentthatexploreshow
theatricalexperiencescanbeenhancedthrough interactive spaces.
Revenue Coverage Optimization
Research contributionResearchers in HPL’s Business Optimization
Lab are conducting fundamental research in analytic algorithms and approaches to optimize business process. In 2008, they transferred a new inventory-management
tool that allows HP’s procurement engi-neers to prioritize their product portfolio decisions based on each product’s inter-
actions with other products, to enable rapidorderfulfillmentwhilemaximizing
revenue. The tool analyzes sales data and generates a ranking to identify a
“Coreportfolio”ofproducts–thosemost critical to revenue coverage; an “extendedportfolio”ofproductsthatare less critical but are still important
to revenue, and a selection of candidates for discontinuance.
SpotlightBy improving availability of the productsintheCoreportfolio,HP’s Personal Systems Group
has dramatically improved order cycle time.
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Tube: De-Duplication Technology for HP’s Virtual Tape Library ProductsResearch contributionTo back up critical data, enterprises increasingly use virtual tape libraries (VTLs). Data de-duplication (a technique for data redundancy) can increase a VTL’s backup capacity by orders of magnitude, but performance demands make it hard to scale. Working with partners in HP’s StorageWorks business, HPL researcher KaveEgashico-inventedaneffective,industry leading solution for scaling up chunk-based de-duplication. The result is a system that processes terabytes of data withextremelyhigh-speedthroughputandvery low latency.
Business impactTube was incorporated into two HP VTL product lines: D2D2500 and D2D4000, released in July 2008. These products increase disk utilization up to 50 times over previous generations.
R. Stanley (Stan) WilliamsPh.D.,PhysicalChemistry Director, Information and Quantum Systems Lab HP Senior Fellow
RESEARCH INTERESTS | Williams’ primary scientific research is in the areas of solid-state chemistry and physics, and their applications to technology. This has evolved into the areas of nanostructures and chemically-assembled materials, with an emphasis on the thermodynamics of sizeandshape.Currently,Williamsisfocused on creating the mathematical and physical foundations for the technologies that will form a new informationecosystem,theCentralNervousSystemfortheEarth.
SPOTLIGHT | Williams has been awarded more than 60 U.S. patents, published more than 300 papers in reviewed scientific journals, and spoken at hundreds of conferences. He was named to the Scientific American 50 Top Technology leaders in 2002 and 2005. In 2005, Small Times magazine named his U.S. patent collection the world’s top nanotechnology intellectual property portfolio,andin2000,MIT’sTechnology Review placed one of his inventions among the top 5 that “will transform business and technology.”
HP Labs is specifically inventing technologies that will support enterprises in:• Managing massive enterprise content through
superior metadata management and content analysis.
• Information extraction for actionable insights supporting compliance, risk management, and business policy decisions.
• Scalable event-driven business intelligence that transforms enterprise information into operational and transactional intelligence.
• Ensuring security, reliability, real-time, and multi-channel delivery of data to consumers, small and medium sized businesses and enterprises. Businesses will be able to derive actionable
insight and competitive advantage from masses of information and better serve their customers as a result of HPL’s research.
intelligent infrastructureIntelligent Infrastructure describes the design of smarter, more secure enterprise computing devices, networks, and storage using scalable architectures that work together, connecting individuals and businesses to an exponentially expanding array of dynamic content and services.
Modern enterprises create and process information at ever-expanding volume and accelerating rates. Today’s infrastructure, built on old protocols, is strained by enterprise requirements to support bandwidth-hungry applications, mobility, security, and manageability.
Numerous infrastructure elements require innovation to keep up with the growing demands of businesses. Computing architectures, system designs and software must adapt to capitalize on the benefits of multi-core processors. Networks must scale to support datacenter growth. Storage must become self managing to meet the demands of the next-generation enterprise computing infrastructure.
In addition, nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize the way data is collected, stored and transmitted, with the potential to provide higher-density, lower-power, higher-bandwidth systems.
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Chandrakant PatelP.E.,MechanicalEngineering
Director,SustainableITEcosystemLab HP Fellow
RESEARCH INTERESTS | Patel has been an industry-recognized thought leader in energy-efficient computing since founding the HP Labs’ thermal technology research program in the early 1990s. Patel applies his broad
expertiseinthermo-mechanicaltechnologies for future microprocessors, workstations, servers and data centers to create “smart” data centers, which integrate power, cooling and system
architecture to optimize efficiency. He is also an adjunct faculty member at
ChabotCollege(Hayward,Calif.)andlecturer at San Jose State University, SantaClaraUniversity,Universityof
California,Berkeley.
SPOTLIGHT | In 2008, Patel was namedaFellowoftheIEEE“For
leadership in thermal and energy management in data centers.” In 2005 he won HP’s Joel S. Birnbaum Prize for innovation, awarded for contributions thatdemonstrateextraordinaryvision,
perseverance, innovation and creativity. He holds over 95 U.S. patents.
Research ContributionsOur research promises to transform today’s electronic infrastructure. IT systems built on HP’s intelligent infrastructure technologies—highly-parallel, distributed systems and intelligent storage brought together through high-speed networks—will deliver the performance, resilience, and adaptability enterprises require. To achieve this, HPL is pursuing a holistic, multidisciplinary research agenda that includes: • New optical communication technology.• Energy-efficient datacenter networks that scale to
tens of thousands of computers.• New enterprise-grade, self-managed systems and
technologies that store and manage petabytes of information.
• New server and datacenter designs that enable parallelism from a few users to millions of users, while keeping administrative costs low and performance high.
• Multi-core processor design.• Nanotechnology innovation, leveraging our
ability to inexpensively print nanostructures in order to build devices that have orders of magnitude more functionality.Enterprises will run more efficiently and reliably,
and their customers will see improved service and lower costs, as a result of HPL’s research.
sustainabilitySustainability in the information technology (IT) context means creating technologies, IT infrastructure, and new business models that promote low emissions, save money and leave a lighter footprint on the environment.
IT companies can make operational improvements such as consolidating datacenters, designing datacenters for thermal efficiency, and virtualizing resources to become more environmentally responsible. IT companies can also help their customers do the same and more. A new generation of sustainable IT services will deconstruct conventional physical infrastructure and make possible low-carbon improvements across business operations and product life cycles.
A plethora of opportunities exist to make improvements across the value chain: in supply chain, in materials and energy consumption, in IT
system architecture and physical design, and in innovative tools and models to optimize resource allocation.
Research ContributionsHP Labs sustainability research aims to build an IT ecosystem—comprising billions of service-oriented client devices, thousands of data centers, and print and manufacturing facilities—where available energy is managed as a key resource and apportioned based on need.
HP Labs leads the industry in developing the technology that could dramatically reduce energy consumption and the carbon footprint of entire industries. Our research includes:• Building a better data center by reducing the
carbon footprint of data centers by 75% while reducing the total cost of ownership.
• Tools that can model, predict, measure and manage the environmental impact of product manufacturing, supply chains and business processes.
• Flexible, inexpensive and portable low-power displays and e-paper surfaces.
• Print ecosystem innovations with the potential to reduce print waste.
• Technologies to fit hundreds of processors on server system chips using optical connections that are 20 times more efficient than what is available today and will save companies multiple gigawatts of power annually.
• Nanotechnology research that may lead to instant-on computing systems with fast, low-power, non-volatile memories; inexpensive but highly efficient solar cells, and creating a network of ultra-low-power sensors that could be used to monitor energy use.Businesses and governments will be able to
run a streamlined infrastructure designed for dramatically reduced impact on the environment as a result of HPL research.
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“I couldn’t think of a better way to foster breakthroughs than counting on lab directors who are on the same
wavelength as their favorite researchers.”—Junko Yoshidaeter, blogger
Employees were able to vote for their top three choices of Labs in which to work, and over 90% of employees were assigned to the Lab that was their first choice.
High impact researchOur goal for FY08 was to establish highly effective research agenda that supports HPL’s mission to advance the state of the art and deliver business value to HP. We measure success in this area by qualifying and quantifying proposals for new research projects, success meeting and exceeding project milestones; and alignment of research projects with other projects in labs to the eight research themes.
At the instantiation of our research agenda, we considered 95 total research proposals. 60 were approved. In the fall, we considered an additional 13 and approved an additional six proposals.
Another goal for our transformation in HP Labs was to ensure that our investment portfolio is balanced and HPL produces a steady stream of ready-to-commercialize innovations over time. To this end, we sought to create a portfolio which
TransformationFollowing the August ’07 appointment of Prith Banerjee as Senior Vice President, Research and Director of HP Labs, HPL began an inclusive, ground-breaking strategic planning process.
Our goal for FY08 was to transform HP Labs into a place where more exciting, high-impact research is performed, and where most of the research is transferred to the Business Units or developed into new businesses.
To achieve this, we considered four large areas corresponding to HP’s businesses: Personal Systems and Networking, Printing and Imaging, Servers and Storage, Software and Services.
Teams comprising technologists and executives from HPL and the HP’s businesses made recommendations on Open Innovation, Technology Transfer, People and Culture, Marketing and Reputation, Research Themes, and Research Administration. Throughout the process, we sought employee feedback and encouraged discussion via social networking technologies.
In February ’08, we began implementation of the plan. We formed and staffed our 23 new Labs.
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emphasized to a greater degree applied research (1-3 year projects) and longer-term, exploratory research (3-5 year projects), in addition to advance product development (projects expected to be commercialized in less than one year).
Two HPL technologies were named in Wired magazine’s “Top Technology Breakthroughs of 2008.” Wired recognized HPL’s SAIL (Self-Aligning Imprint Lithography) technology, a manufacturing breakthrough for flexible displays that enables thin-film transistor arrays to be fabricated on flexible plastic materials, and Memristor, a memory resistor.
Business impact and Technology transferOur goal is to deliver innovations that are relevant to HP’s customers and profitable to HP. We work closely with our colleagues in HP’s business units, and often directly with customers themselves, to ensure we meet this goal. Our success is measured in terms of the financial impact of technologies we transfer to our businesses, incubations of new businesses, technologies that we spin out of HP and license agreements for intellectual property coming from HPL.
22 transfers in FY08 were evaluated to have “moved the needle” towards improving HP’s bottom line, through revenue impact or cost savings. A list of these transfers can be found online in HPL’s FY08 Annual Report Appendix at: http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2009/jan-mar/annual_report_app.html.
Advancing the state of the artOur goal in FY08 was to produce leading-edge innovation in our technology themes. A primary indicator of technical excellence is through validation by the research community: for example, publications in peer-reviewed journals, papers accepted at prestigious conferences, and intellectual property filings including invention disclosures and patents.
A list of HPL publications can be found online in HPL’s FY08 Annual Report Appendix at:
http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2009/jan-mar/annual_report_app.html.
In addition, HPL inventors were listed on 326 U.S. and 175 foreign granted patents.
Thought leadership Our success depends upon our ability to engage and influence the broader scientific and business communities. We are helping to lead the industry and shape the future of IT through our participation in high-impact industry events and standards bodies. We played a significant leadership role in acting as a board member in 64 consortiums, professional conferences, or university and government organizations. Additionally, we acted as event chairs for 106 consortium or professional conference events including nine IEEE conferences. We also acted as editors for 31 technical journals.
PeopleHP Labs aims to attract, challenge, develop and retain the best technical talent in the industry. We measure our success by tracking acceptance rates of employment offers, retention rates of top-rated researchers, successful re-assignment of researchers at the end of a project, promotions to senior technical positions, and annual employee surveys. Our managers are individually assessed on their abilities to build strong teams and inspire innovation within them.
HP Labs is proud to be recruiting the next generation of technical leaders from the world’s leading universities. In the past year, we hired 40 new permanent staff from inside HP and from institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, University of California at Berkeley, and more. Every year, dozens of students come to HPL to pursue internships and post-doctoral studies from schools including Stanford University, Rice University, California Institute of Technology, Massachusets Institute of Technology, the Russian Academy of Sciences, Technion University in Israel and more. Many of these join HPL following the completion of their studies.
Open InnovationHP Labs’ Open Innovation goal is to amplify our research investments through partnerships with industry, government and academia. HP Labs funds university professors to conduct research aligned
Publication type Total
Conferences 455
Journals, books 176
Technical reports/white papers 186
Anupriya AnkolekarPh.D.,HumanComputerInteraction SocialComputingLab
RESEARCH INTERESTS | Ankolekar conducts research in online communities, mobility, emerging Web technologies, computer-supported cooperative work, human-computer interaction, services and specification languages. As a researcher intheSocialComputingLab,shefocuseson creating innovative personalized services for Web communities and enabling online communities to collaborate effectively to create meaningful content.
SPOTLIGHT | Ankolekar, who completed herPh.D.atCarnegieMelllonUniversityin 2005, joined HPL as a Visiting Scholar in 2007. She joined on as regular staff in October 2008. When asked why she joined Labs, Ankolekar says, “I joined HPL to work with some wonderful people, who have technical competence as well as sensitivity and insight. I also felt that HPL, as the research arm of a large and successful IT company, provided me with a unique position to see my research have an impact in the real world.”
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Steve SimskePh.D.,ElectricalEngineering
Print Production Automation Lab Distinguished Technologist
RESEARCH INTERESTS | Simske works to apply his technical skills in
fields including biomedicine, content understanding, intelligent analysis
systems, biometric algorithms, and track and trace, anti-counterfeiting systems. Simske currently manages a research projecttoexplorenovelprinting-and
imaging-based approaches to forensics, product authentication and
dynamic biometrics.
SPOTLIGHT | In 2008, HP began investigating counterfeits in its
worldwide returns centers using Simske’s Image-Based Forensic Service.
He also created a solution for the U.S.-wide Tamper-Resistant Prescription
PadprogramwithintheCentersforMedicareandMedicaid.Simske,
who holds 25 U.S. patents, previously created a document analysis system for HP capture devices. In 1992, he designed and built first autonomous
system to support mice in space.
2008 HP Labs Innovation Research Awards 45 awards, 35 universities,14 countries
• Stanford University • University of California,
Berkeley • University of California, Davis • University of California, San
Diego • University of California, Santa
Barbara • University of Southern
California
• University of Toronto • Carnegie Mellon University • Massachusetts Institute of
Technology • State University of New
York at Buffalo • Rochester Institute of
Technology
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• University of Michigan • University of Wisconsin-
Madison • Purdue University • Georgia Institute of Technology
• University of Edinburgh, Scotland • University of Bath, England • University of Leeds, England • University of Bristol, England
• Konstanz University, Germany • Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany • Universitaet Karlsruhe, Germany • Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands • Universidade do Minho, Portugal
• Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India
• Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India
Americas
EMEA
• Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia • University of Saint-Petersburg, Russia
• Bilkent University, Turkey
• National Institute of Informatics, Japan
• Peking University, China • Tsinghua University, China
• Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
APJ
• Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Europe, Middle East & Africa
Asia-Pacific & Japan
with our themes. We also receive external funding from government agencies, customers or other businesses. Our managers are measured on their ability to engage others in the IT ecosystem in their research programs to accelerate innovation.
HPL Innovation Research ProgramThe HP Labs Innovation Research Program supports HPL’s research agenda by funding innovative project ideas from universities and research institutes around the globe. 450 submissions from 200 universities in 28 countries resulted from our inaugural 2008 call for proposals. HP Labs Innovation Awards went to 45 projects at 35 institutions, including University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Germany’s Technische Universitaet Muenchen, the Russian Academy of Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology and China’s Tsinghua University.
Looking Forward Our vision for 2009 is to be a world-class industrial research Lab that, in partnership with other leading thinkers, delivers innovation that matters to customers and creates business value for HP.
Our extraordinary team will allow us achieve this vision, producing innovations that solve hard problems and advance the state of the art.
We look forward to forging new partnerships with customers, academia and other innovators to develop new ideas that challenge our industry and improve our world. To participate in HP Labs’ Open Innovation discussion, please visit http://www.hpl.hp.com.
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Automated Infrastructure Lab John Manley, Director BristolBusiness Optimization LabJaap Suermondt, Director Palo AltoCommercial Print Engine Lab Eric Hanson, Director Palo AltoCommunity and Interactive Media LabHiromi Oda, Director JapanEnterprise Informatics LabMartin Merry, Director BristolExascale Computing LabNorm Jouppi, Director Palo AltoInformation and Quantum Systems Lab Stan Williams, Director Palo AltoInformation Fusion and Real Time Delivery LabVladimir Polutin, Director RussiaInformation Surfaces Lab Carl Taussig, Director Palo Alto and BristolInnovations for the Next Billion Customers of HPAjay Gupta, Director IndiaIntelligent Information Management LabMei Hsu, Director Palo AltoMultimedia Communications and Networking LabJohn Apostolopoulos, Director Palo Alto
Multimedia Interaction and Understanding LabQian Lin, Director Palo AltoPervasive Computing Lab Huw Robson, Director Bristol and Palo AltoPrint Production Automation Lab Gary Dispoto, Director Palo AltoPrinting Automation Technology Oren Ariel, Director IsraelSystems Security LabMartin Sadler, Director Bristol and Palo AltoService Automation and Integration Lab Chris Whitney, Director Palo AltoSocial Computing Lab Bernardo Huberman, Director Palo AltoStorage and Information Management Platforms Lab Alistair Veitch, Director Palo AltoSustainable IT Ecosystem Lab Chandrakant Patel, Director Palo AltoWeb Content Analysis LabWei Liu, Director ChinaWeb Services and Systems Lab Tony Wiley, Director Bristol h
© 2009 Hewlett-Packard, Inc
Editor-in-Chief:HazenWitemeyerPhotography:EricAndersonandWeiKoh
Design:MeghanKennedyandLorraineManawilAppendix:JeffArchie,SueCharles,CyndiNickel,CathieSmithandQinZhu
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