Staring Into IBM's Eye Of A Blockchain Posted on : May 23 - 2018

If eyes really are windows to the soul, IBM’s latest product could lead to blockchain enlightenment.

Called a crypto anchor verifier, the technology, which is part artificial-intelligence software, part insanely sophisticated, internally developed lens, can see the cells of animals and distinguish between them.

Powered by a lens capable of rendering objects as small as a single micron, the verifier is also designed to search out—and understand—the difference between a fake drug and the real deal, a cheap bottle of wine and an expensive one, and imperfections in diamonds that are undetectable to human eyes.

Perhaps even more remarkable, the verifier is designed to do all this by downloading software developed by IBM to any smartphone. A custom lens placed over the phone’s camera turns the device into a scanner with the potential to extract immense value from every layer of a supply chain.

But all that data has to be stored somewhere. And as a rising tide of blockchain companies are competing to connect global supply chains to a shared, immutable ledger, IBM fellow Donna Dillenberger thinks that’s exactly where the real potential of the crypto verifier will be unlocked.

“You can use it without a blockchain,”  Dillenberger says. “But you need to put the record somewhere.”

At the hardware level, the lens enables a smartphone camera to record details as small as one-millionth of a meter. By searching for optical characteristics such as shape, viscosity, saturation value, spectral values and the microscopic details of an object’s surface, the lens helps generate a heap of data.

Then IBM’s software is used to compare those findings with known models to make bigger-picture determinations about an object’s authenticity and origin. In a video demo given to Forbes, the hardware/AI combination was shown distinguishing between olive oil and water dyed yellow.

By integrating the product verifier at every level of a supply chain and logging the results on any number of blockchain solutions, Dillenberger believes the platform-agnostic tool can help assure consumers they got what they paid for, and identify who to blame if not.

“We as consumers buy things, and somethings we pay a premium to make sure this is really a particular gem grade or really an extra virgin olive oil or really a $1,000 bottle of wine,” she says. “What we can do at the point the oil, gem or product is grown or developed, is record that and send it to a blockchain." View More