Computers

Power of IBM's cognitive supercomputer Watson is now available in the cloud

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IBM executives explore Watson apps, with a shopping portal powered by Watson in the background (Photo: Jack Plunkett, Feature Photo Service)
CaféWell Concierge uses Watson to process large amounts of medical data and distill the essentials (Photo: IBM)
CaféWell Concierge is a cognitive application powered by Watson to help people make health choices (Photo: IBM)
MD Buyline's new Watson-powered application, Hippocrates, helps medical professionals choose among medical devices (Photo: IBM)
Watson-powered CaféWell Concierge chats with humans about complex medical information (Photo: IBM)
IBM executives explore Watson apps, with a shopping portal powered by Watson in the background (Photo: Jack Plunkett, Feature Photo Service)
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You probably first heard of IBM’s cognitive supercomputer Watson when it bested human competitors on Jeopardy, but soon it may interact with you through the cloud. With the announcement today that Watson will be available to application developers, software can make use of Watson to add meaning to massive amounts of unstructured data, while interacting with humans in a way we understand.

The IBM Watson Developers Cloud distills over 40 technologies that make up Watson’s brain into an API (application programming interface) that can be called on the fly in any application requiring natural language processing or the interpretation of big data (or Big Data, as IBM prefers to address it).

Companies can either supply their own data or make use of third-party databases. IBM is also supplying a developer toolkit, educational materials, and a partnership with freelance firm Elance, which is creating a community of available Watson developers.

As a result of this announcement, IBM hopes to see massive innovation in cognitive computing applications.

Just as Jeopardy proved a test of Watson’s ability to interpret vague or deceptive language and cross-reference itself quickly to massive amounts of information, other fields provide their own challenges, and thus opportunity for Watson to learn. Watson has already been used extensively in the healthcare field, which has its own vocabulary and syntax that may not parallel how an end user would request information.

IBM provides three cloud “case studies” in health choices and personal shopping. In the first, e-commerce technology company Fluid is developing a personal shopper that can correlate information requests with vast store inventories. The Hippocrates app, on the other hand, allows professionals to navigate choices of medical devices. In that same field, health management firm Welltok is creating a healthcare “concierge” to engage users in informed but friendly conversations about health care choices.

CaféWell Concierge uses Watson to process large amounts of medical data and distill the essentials (Photo: IBM)

Cloud computing is big business, so it’s no coincidence that IBM chose to make this announcement the week Amazon hosts its annual conference dedicated to Amazon Web Services. However, Watson is unique in its natural language processing and ability to learn experimentally.

While we may see more of Watson in the future thanks to its new cloud API, currently developer access is open through “controlled invitation”. Pricing for the IBM Watson Developers Cloud is undetermined.

Earlier this year we saw Watson use to provide medical diagnosis and customer service.

In the video below, IBM executives and corporate partners discuss their vision for the IBM Watson Developers Cloud.

Source: IBM via NY Times

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3 comments
Grunchy
I will be thrilled for Watson to become the world's most powerful lawyer, accessible via iPad or Android tablet. Undoubtedly the pricing for such technology would initially match current legal representation, but before long competition should drive this down (I would hope). Imagine - legal representation at a price the common man could afford! This would eliminate the #1 advantage rich people have, which is the power to legally intimidate others in a court of law. This would be the true "man equalizer". The first challenge would be to beat down all the law societies that would immediately seek to deny everybody access to such service. In my wildest dream, the world's greatest lawyer should have no problem defeating those law societies at their own game...
christopher
I wonder if you've ever seen the inside of a real lawsuit? It's all about lies, deception, misinformation, suit prolongation, and in general "verbal dirty warfare". Watson's going to need to learn a whole new bag of tricks to play on *that* field!
Grunchy
Christopher, good point. But for every fallacious, obstructive argument that a scheming lawyer can come up with, Watson should be able to craft a logical, fact-based refutation. Watson should be able to enumerate all the faulty arguments and refute every one of them, one-by-one. In my imagination, you would run all the background paperwork through a scanner, signal that you are "done", and then Watson would interpret everything and output a legal defense, in real-time. Wouldn't that be grand? And then it could represent you in front of a judge, perhaps via a portable tablet using Wi Fi or cellular. Legal societies have already had phones and communication / photographic devices banned from court rooms, but reference books are usually permitted, and so is legal representation. I suppose the argument to get this technology into a courtroom would be that Watson is both your legal representation and part of your reference material, and that you aren't using your tablet as a cell phone or as a camera.