IBM Watson

The computer system of IBM Watson based on DeepQA technology is intended for extraction and information analysis from texts in a natural language and also for quick search of answers to questions. DeepQA is based on statistical approach in computational linguistics, i.e. for creation of the cognitive systems capacities of ADP equipment are used.

Specialized versions

• IBM Watson Analytics
• IBM Watson Assistant Voice assistant
• IBM Watson for Cyber Security
• IBM Watson Health
• IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT)
• IBM Watson Marketing Insights
• IBM Watson for Oncology

2019: The vulnerabilities allowing to capture devices and to steal data are corrected

On April 1, 2019 the IBM company released warning of several serious vulnerabilities revealed in its analytical Watson system and already corrected in the last update. All these vulnerabilities, anyway, are connected with use of Java.

According to the company, the most serious of them is CVE-2018-2633 which allows the malefactor to take control over the target device in the presence of access to a local network in which it is located. In the description it is specified that successful operation of the device requires "interaction of other, than attacking, the user". So it is that without drawing attention of the final user it is impossible to use this vulnerability.

And even at user "partnership" will operate vulnerability very not easy. But considering the value of devices on which Watson is started, for potential malefactors, vulnerability is recommended to be corrected as soon as possible. At successful to the attack the malefactor can receive control over local to applications Java SE, Java SE Embedded and JRockit in OracleJava SE.

Other vulnerability — CVE-2018-2603 — allows to cause falling of a system on which Watson, using the DoS-attack is started. IBM did not begin to disclose details about this vulnerability, having limited only to ascertaining that operation of this bug is simpler, than at CVE-2018-2633.

Three remained vulnerabilities — CVE-2018-2579, CVE-2018-2588 and CVE-2018-2602 — can lead to unauthorized disclosure of confidential information. No special details about operation methods, besides, are given.^[1]

That IBM prefers not to disclose details about methods of operation of vulnerabilities perhaps, there is some sense. At least, it will cut not the most purposeful and qualified cybermalefactors. But only them: more serious professionals will find out sooner or later how to use the new detected bugs so updates need to be set as it is possible more quickly. Mikhail Zaytsev, information security expert of SEC Consult Services company

2018: Start of previously trained AI systems for landowners and developers

On September 25, 2018 the IBM company announced start of previously trained Watson systems for agriculture, productions, the real estate market and other industries. Buying new tools, clients receive complete solutions which are ready to commercial use.

For example, for landowners the Watson Decision Platform for Agriculture system using possibilities of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and cloud computing is created.

IBM released previously trained Watson AI systems for agriculture

Using predictive algorithms, sensors and optional data (for example, meteorological) the platform will be able to define the key factors capable to affect productivity (such as soil temperature, humidity level, fatigue of plants, presence of wreckers or diseases). Farmers can use unmanned aerial vehicles for sending photos to IBM Cloud cloud for the purpose of the subsequent analysis and also own images of plants for recognition of diseases algorithms of computer vision.

Thanks to Watson in agriculture of AI  it will be possible to use for the most different applications: from   pest control before  forecasting  of grain prices in  the world market in real time.

In addition to landowners, IBM prepared previously trained AI systems for the clients who are engaged in personnel recruitment, customer service, production, marketing, etc. By the end of September, 2018 some products are already started, and is going to deliver others to clients in the near future.

Personnel departments will be able to use the Watson tools for the analysis of indicators of the acting employees with different experience that then to look for suitable candidates on the basis of skills which are most useful to the companies.

The solution IBM IoT building Insights will study data on work of commercial buildings for cost reduction on the electric power and measurements of density of stay of people.^[2]

2017: Technologies for implementation of AI

At the beginning of November, 2017 IBM provided the technologies for the cognitive Watson — Data Catalog and Data Refinery platform designed to simplify implementation of the artificial intelligence (AI) in the corporate software.^[3]

Main article: IBM Data Platform

2016

Cognitive technologies for professionals

On December 2, 2016 IBM announced start of a series of cognitive solutions for marketing professionals, commerce, logistics and personnel management. According to the statement of the company, these technologies will help the organizations of any size and any industry to integrate the advanced cognitive opportunities into business.

IBM gives cognitive opportunities of Watson to millions of professionals around the world which have an access to the reliable consultant and the personal analyst. Like that value which the Watson system introduced in the field of health care cognitive capabilities will help professionals with the different industries to use the potential of the generated data and to apply them in a new way. Garriyet Green, head of cognitive interaction and education, Watson IoT

Screenshot of the software screen, (2016)

Information including parts about last purchases, habits of the consumer and preferences on delivery is the cornerstone of any faultless customer interaction. Such insights surely should be considered, they should be available from the first click, before product receipt and during some period after purchase commission.

Cognitive solutions of IBM for marketing specialists will help professionals with this area to define and target audience, relying on a consumer behavior, to make an ideal configuration of a campaign to increase conversion and loyalty to a brand.

• IBM Watson Customer Experience Analytics collects different data on behavior of buyers (for example, structure of purchases, the operating trends and so on) correctly to define target audiences of a campaign. The application continuously considers and processes new behavioural data and models that marketing specialists could configure quickly and easily customer segmentation by means of visualization and interaction in a natural language.

• IBM Watson Content Hub uses cognitive capabilities for understanding and studying of data in a content management system of the company. The service learns to understand the saved data, then to distinguish and to automatically select content, including images, video and documents, relying on millions of previous examples. It allows marketing specialists and merchandisers to select quickly the correct content, proceeding from requirements of a campaign and regardless of the used channel.

Positive experience of buyers does not come to an end with purchase of goods by the buyer. More likely, its result is the moment when the goods appear in the client's hands. Despite this fact, many retailers experience difficulty in satisfaction of need of the client at a final stage of interaction, taking into account need of increase in profitability and cost reduction on all sales channels.

IBM Watson Order Optimizer, a part of set of cognitive solutions for professionals in the field of commerce, helps online specialists to process orders on all channels. Cognitive opportunities allow the application to study gradually, to study models of the executed orders and the operating market trends. Then on the basis of these data service develops recommendations about all directions: from the capacity of network to transportation and time expenditure.

One of problems for suppliers - the insufficient level of openness of their physical and digital supply chains, in particular capability to perceive and process a huge number of the generated data. IBM Watson Supply Chain Insights is cognitive technology for professionals in the field of logistics, constantly studies standard logistic models of the company by means of the analysis and identification of trends on the basis of the data obtained from a set of systems, including systems of trading partners. About 65% of the cost taken by the company from the devices and services depend on such information. After that a system warns specialists about potential failures, offers assessment of time delays and the financial cost of problems, offers recommendations to specific experts who can gather in a virtual study for operational permission.

Cognitive opportunities of IBM Watson Talent increase efficiency of recruiting, training and search of talents, improving work of personnel department. By means of services for increase in efficiency of IBM Watson Work employees can contact experts, offer relevant content and insights, to make team work as more productive.

• IBM Watson Workspace investigates style of work and communication of each employee, and then integrates all business talk from different communication links. The technology selects the list of the most urgent measures, indicates correct content at the right time and automates the list of daily tasks so that employees could focus on the most important business challenges.

• IBM Watson Work Services – a set of cognitive API – Action Identification (action identification), Moment Identification (identification of the moment) and Summarization (creation of reviews of contents) – access to which developers can get through the application website. Services will help to integrate cognitive capabilities into the operating working products and applications, such as IBM Watson Workspace, the existing applications of third-party developers and processes of creation of new applications. The technology uses qualifiers of a natural language, can analyze and simplify process of acceptance of necessary actions. For example, if the phrase sounded: "Perfectly, let's make an appointment and we will discuss in more detail", a system can identify "let's make an appointment" as action and to pick up the most optimal time for continuation of a conversation.

IBM Watson created a trailer to the Hollywood movie

Triller of Morgan from film company 20th Century Fox got a trailer from artificial intelligence. The artificial intelligence of Watson from IBM created three-minute video. To mount a roller, it needed to browse more than 100 trailers of horror films and thrillers. So Watson understood what sounds, scenes and emotions need to be put nearby. The artificial intelligence analyzed a mood music, an order and composition of videos and also an emotional component of all scenes (its Watson determined by the looks, color schemes and objects which are in a frame). After this Watson selected 10 best moments from the thriller "Morgan" which were mounted by employees studios in a trailer. Representatives of IBM told that intervention of people helped to reduce workflow from 10-30 days till 24 o'clock^[4].

Siemens Healthineers begins to offer IBM Watson Health services

On October 11, 2016 Siemens Healthineers also IBM announced the beginning of strategic cooperation in the area health care. Joint efforts of the company will help medical institutions to manage flows of patients more effectively. Siemens Healthineers will offer PHM solutions and services from IBM Watson Health and also consulting services, helping medical institutions to pass to new technologies of health care. In more detail here.

Implementation problems in banks

On August 11, 2016 the Reuters agency issued the publication devoted to volume as banks would like to use the cognitive IBM Watson platform in the activity, but are not able to afford to make it because of reductions of budgets.

Several leading employees of IT departments of large American banks told the edition that Watson has high potential for the financial sector, however it is heavy to convince the management concentrated on improvement of quarterly statements, to invest in this software or other solutions, not capable to pay off quickly.

Banks with Wall Street want to implement IBM Watson, but cannot

It is necessary to undertake heavy responsibility for receiving the correct result in several years — one of IT heads of large bank with Wall Street noted, meaning that top managers strongly risk at long-term IT projects.

According to informed sources of Reuters, IBM presented possibilities of Watson to several banks, including Bank of America, Barclays and Morgan Stanley. The company showed multifunctionality of the system — namely, capability to answer questions of clients in branches on service of retail business, to reveal fraud cases with credit cards and to help asset managers of wealthy clients to make more effective recommendations about investments.

However to convince bankers to use in work this software not easy, the vice president for IBM Watson implementation Ad Harbor (IBM Watson) complains.

Many American banks are recognized that the technology is real, and it works, however they have too many other things in which it is necessary to invest. They want to receive immediate return. They see that more income arrives from cost reduction, than from building of profit — Harbor noted.

As told Reuters in several banks, the minimum cost of use of such software as Watson, taking into account expenses on complex project evaluation and training are measured by millions of dollars. At the same time the cost of full-scale product introduction can reach tens of millions of dollars.

If the companies do not want to develop Watson in full, they can develop own the application, using the source code of this platform, the representative of IBM noted.

IBM reports that one large medical insurance company could achieve economy more than in $11 million annually thanks to Watson in work of the call center.^[5]

Promotion of IBM Watson on the U.S. presidency

In February, 2016 it became known of promotion of the IBM Watson supercomputer on the U.S. presidency. This on the first a look the inconceivable idea seriously approached the group of enthusiasts which created independent non-profit  organization Watson 2016 Foundation which, as noted, is not related to IBM.

According to authors of the project, Watson has ample opportunities according to information and to pronouncement of acceptable and transparent solutions that does this platform of cognitive calculations by the ideal presidential candidate of the United States.

Enthusiasts created the Watson 2016 Foundation organization advancing the IBM Watson supercomputer in fight for presidency.

Possibilities of Watson in parallel processing of data at the made request allow it to estimate problems by different parameters, issuing the most advantageous answer in every respect — it is said on the website devoted to a presidential campaign of the supercomputer of IBM. — Watson can advise the best options for adoption of any solution, so far as concerns influence on world economy, the environment, education, health care, foreign policy and the civil rights.[6]

However, some solutions of Watson have too radical character. A system, having analyzed what is necessary for the USA, pointed to general national health insurance, free higher education, the fastest transition to pure power and legalization of soft drugs.

Organizers  of Watson 2016 Foundation say that public contributions for promotion of the supercomputer in a presidential race are not required as IBM invests in development of its opportunities much. Only in 2015 the American corporation spent about $12 billion for Watson, initiators of the project note.^[7]

At institute of Georgia half a year was taught by the IBM Watson robot, and none of students of it noticed

The teacher Jill Watson helped about five months students of Institute of Technology of Georgia with work on projects on design of programs. The nuance is that Jill is a robot, the system of artificial intelligence working based on IBM Watson, but none of students, discussing works with the teacher, for all this time suspected nothing. And someone from students before this opening was even going to call her "the outstanding teacher". It were students from a class on studying of artificial intelligence, writes^[8].

Jill tells a story^[9]. Since January, 2016 Gill as the assisting teacher, together with 9 more teachers people helped 300 students to develop programs which help computers to solve a certain type problems, for example – how to pick up the picture that the sequence of pictures was logical.

Jill helped students at a forum where they handed over and discussed works, used in the speech slang and colloquial turnovers like "uga" and, in general, behaved as the normal human teacher.

"She had to remind us of dates of a deadline and using questions to warm up discussion of works. It was similar to a normal conversation with the ordinary person", – the student of university Jennifer Gavin told the edition.

Other student, Shreyas Vidyarti, imagined Jill as the friendly white woman 20 years, working, most likely, on doctor's are slightly more senior. "As struck me with a thunder", – the student shares impressions.

Reached that the robot in Ms. Watson was not recognized even by the student Barrik Read who worked two years for IBM, having created some of programs using which the robot operates. But he did not make out a hint in the name "Watson". "I had to guess, but is not present", – he says.

Why Jill did include in the training program?

The problem is that students ask too many questions – about 10,000 messages in a semester, Ashok Goel, professor of computer sciences of Institute of Technology of Georgia explains. Teachers people not always cope with shaft of questions. Ashok decided to enter the robot into the training program for the class for studying of artificial intelligence.

The high school command worked on the robot, training him to answer questions, considering the previous answers. You should not confuse Jill with normal chat-bots. If the majority of chat-bots – beginners, then Jill is the expert, she does not answer a question, will not reach 67% of confidence in the answer yet, Goel claims. According to him, Jill it is still far to Ava from Ex Machina, but it is the same concerning experience.

By professor's estimates, all in a year Jill will study so that will be able to answer 40% of questions of students, leaving the right to deal with more serious technical or philosophical issues for people.

Start on Cisco equipment for analytics without Internet connection

At the beginning of June, 2016 IBM and Cisco announced creation of the joint project focused on clients for whom the analytical tools working without Internet connection are required.

Within partnership the cloud solutions for data analysis using the cognitive Watson platform will be able to work together with routers and other equipment of Cisco. In certain cases software of IBM can be installed directly on Cisco devices for data analysis at the local level with a possibility of their subsequent network transfer on primary servers.

IBM starts IBM on Cisco equipment

Such service is useful on remote objects, like oil derricks and mines where there is no stable Internet connection. Thanks to analytical tools of IBM operation of the equipment at such enterprises will be able locally to be controlled.

We are concentrated on work with Watson as a cloud system, but to some clients having remote or autonomous transactions, we should offer something else — Harriet Green, the general manager of IoT-department in division of IBM Watson says. — In sea navigation, the mining industry and at many plants it is necessary to work with computer networks which can have too expensive capacity or weak.

According to the top manager, the transaction between IBM and Cisco is not exclusive, but for each of the companies it became the first cooperation with the large partner when mastering the new markets — in this case it is the markets of Internet of Things (Internet of Things, IoT) and technologies of the analysis of Big Data.

As the vice president of Cisco concerning work with data and analytics Mike Flannagan noted, consolidation of technologies of IBM with a network architecture of Cisco is a big step forward on the way of creation of more "smart" IoT-solutions and connection them to powerful cloud analytical tools.^[10]

2015

Opening of the headquarters of Watson Internet of Things

On December 16, 2015 the IBM corporation announced opening of the global headquarters of Watson Internet of Things (Watson IoT). It is stated also start of offers, tools for gain of a role of cognitive calculations on trillions of network and touch devices and systems forming Internet of Things of Internet of Things (IoT).

Action of opening of the headquarters (2015)

Munich (Germany) will become the headquarters of division of Watson IoT and the first European center Watson for innovations. The campus will integrate more than 1 thousand developers, consultants, researchers and designers of the company for closer interaction with customers and partners and also will serve as the innovation laboratory for the processing and data analysis specialists, engineers and programmers creating a new class of network solutions on intersection of cognitive calculations and Internet of Things. The center will also be engaged in development of cooperation of customers and partners with processing and data analysis specialists and researchers of IBM that will provide new opportunities for development of all IoT direction.

Watson API and IBM services will be available on a cloud platform of Watson IoT to operational development of the cognitive solutions and services helping customers and partners to understand the growing volume and a variety of data in the modern digital world.

Customers, startups, representatives of scientific community and partners will get direct access to an open cloud platform of IBM for testing, development and creation of cognitive applications, services and the solutions for the Internet of things. According to forecasts of the company, leading enterprises of the Industry 4.0 in the automotive industry, electronics, health care, insurance and the industry can receive the greatest benefit.

Internet of Things will become the largest data source on the planet soon. Despite it, today we do not use nearly 90% of these data. Unique capability of Watson to read out information, gives the chance to draw conclusions and to samoobuchatsya to commercial and government institutions and also ordinary people to use these data in real time, to compare them for a certain period and to the accumulated knowledge. As a result of such comparison it is possible to detect the unexpected correlations helping to receive new valuable outputs and to influence well both business, and society. Garriyet Green, head of department of Watson IoT and Education

The company also announced opening of eight client centers Watson IoT in Asia, Europe, in North and South America. The client centers IBM are located in Beijing (China), Boeblingen (Germany), São Paulo (Brazil), Seoul (South Korea), Tokyo (Japan), in states Massachusetts, Northern Carolina and Texas (USA).

In the centers clients and partners will get access to technology tools and personnel potential for creation and development of new products and services using cognitive intelligence on a cloud platform of Watson IoT Cloud Platform.

Creation of division of Watson Health: Honey data from devices of Apple are flown down in IBM

On April 13, 2015 it became known that IBM created new division which received the name IBM Watson Health. It will manage a cloud service in which data of medical character from different sources, including fitness trackers, smartphones and the smartwatch will be flown down. Afterwards this information on health of users can be transferred to doctors and insurance companies for preparation of personal medical care.

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Data on health of owners of iPhone and Apple Watch with their permission will be transferred to a cloud of IBM

Mobile devices of Apple became a part of this ecosystem. Read more here.

SoftBank and IBM will bring Watson to Japan

On February 10, 2015 IBM announced cooperation with telecommunication giant SoftBank. Partners will develop jointly in Japan cognitive calculations.^[11]

The purpose of cooperation of IBM and SoftBank is start of the new applications and services managed by means of a computer system of Watson and creation of the corresponding local ecosystem from partners, entrepreneurs and developers of software.

SoftBank and IBM will bring Watson to Japan

Joint efforts of IBM and SoftBank will "train" Watson in Japanese. So far a system supports only English, and is in the future going to expand number of compatible languages. It is about Watson Deep QA technology which allows the computer to analyze the natural human speech, to understand questions and to answer them most precisely and clear the person.

The products created by IBM and SoftBank then will be delivered in local educational, insurance and bank sectors and also medical institutions and retail. Developments will be used in the Pepper robot created by SoftBank who thanks to cameras and various sensors is capable to define an emotional status of surrounding people and to react as appropriate.

Cooperation with Softbank will allow IBM to use extensive IT infrastructure of the telecommunication operator for expansion of opportunities of the cognitive Watson system and placement it in data centers in Japan. 40% of IT expenses in the Asia-Pacific reginon fall to the share of this country.

Of IBM for it conducts development of the Watson supercomputer and the software within separate division of Watson Group in which the company invested about $1 billion, hoping that after 2024 this structure will generate more than $10 billion annual revenue. SoftBank and IBM are expected to be earned from the products developed jointly connected with IBM Watson, about 100 billion yens ($833 million) within 5 years.

IBM starts five more public services Watson

Authors of mobile and desktop applications can use five more services of the cognitive IBM Watson system in the developments now. They are intended for conversion of the speech to the text and back, image identifications, conceptual search and contrastive analysis of options using the Pareto principle^[12].

Service of conversion of the speech to the text will give to mobile applications the chance to react to voice commands — approximately the same as it is done by the Siri system on devices of Apple. IBM claims that the speed of speech recognition is very high. Speech synthesizer speaks by the same voice to what it told the Watson supercomputer, participating in the television game Jeopardy in 2011. The English and Spanish languages are supported.

Service of image identification analyzes the image or video and generates the list of the key word describing it. He can distinguish objects on the image, define the nature of the events and the scene of action.

Conceptual search, unlike normal search of materials in a key word, can find not only documents where the set terms, but also documents containing the description of more general concepts corresponding to these terms meet.

At last, service of the analysis helps to select from several options with the known parameters option optimal from the point of view of set criteria. It can be used, for example, for the choice of the best option of treatment of the patient or the most suitable car at the set price.

2014

The cloud service of IBM Watson Discovery Advisor for scientists is announced

The IBM company provided in the summer of 2014 addition to cognitive opportunities of the Watson supercomputer which allows researchers to accelerate rates of scientific research by finding of earlier novel communications in the analysis of Big Data.

The new service IBM Watson Discovery Advisor is available in a cloud environment and is created to help scientists with work on researches. Service allows to reduce time necessary for confirmation of hypotheses and formulation of the conclusions, from months to days and from days to few o'clock, opening new opportunities for researchers and developers.

Based on a possibility of the Watson supercomputer to understand natural languages, Watson Discovery Advisor in the same way understands science language, for example, how chemical elements interact, and provides to specialists the full-function tool for carrying out researches in the field of biological sciences and other areas.

Scientists from the academic, pharmaceutical and other commercial research centers already use new service in order that in a short time to analyze and confirm hypotheses, using data from open sources. The new research is published daily each 30 seconds. In turn, in a year about one million scientific works are published (a source: CiteSeer *). According to National Institute of health care of the USA, the average researcher reads about 23 scientific works a month, i.e. about 300 in a year. And it means that completely it is physically impossible to master the growing number of scientific works.

In 2013 1000 leading research and development companies spent more than 600 billion US dollars for carrying out researches (a source: Strategy&). If to take a full stroke of development of pharmaceutical medicine as an example, then researches progress quite slowly, taking on average from 10 to 15 years (a source: Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America). Using Watson Discovery Advisor, scientists can find new or earlier unsolved communications among separate data which potentially can accelerate rates of scientific research considerably.

New technologies can find application in all spheres where the analysis of a large number of information is required. Cognitive calculations will allow experts to work with huge data arrays, including products of intellectual work of a great number of experts. Watson can be used:

• For the help of the medications to developers necessary for rescue of lives of many people
• Expansions of analytical opportunities of financial advisors
• Improvements of strategy of lawyers on merges and absorption due to more comprehensive legal evaluation and the analysis of documents
• For work of the state analysts in the areas connected with security
• For creation of new recipes. Cooks can use Watson for creation of new dishes, studying of the principles of cooking and structure of food and also to use huge base of recipes with data on compatibility of products, chemistry and kitchens of the countries of the world.

IBM Watson Discovery Advisor can transform the industries and professions which are based on the data, such as law, biotechnologies, education, chemistry, production of metals, scientific research, equipment and criminalistics.

Partnership with Genesys for development of the joint solution for contact centers

The Genesys company announced in the summer of 2014 the beginning of partnership with IBM Watson, business division of the IBM company specializing in software development of services and applications which help to analyze natural human language and are able to issue answers to difficult questions quickly. The solution IBM Watson is the next stage of development of artificial intelligence which opportunities were shown on the American television quiz show Jeopardy.

Consolidation of the solutions Watson Engagement Advisor and Genesys Customer Experience Platform in a new system will become result of cooperation. Watson Engagement Advisor is a commercial service which helps the organizations to enhance the involvement of clients, Genesys Customer Experience Platform – the platform intended for the enterprises of different scale and allowing to monitor interactions between the client and the company at the different levels and on different channels. On the basis of these two solutions the system based on technologies of natural languag processing which will study, process and analyze Big Data in the organizations for automation of actions will be developed. Such solution will be applied, first of all, in contact centers. Genesys is going to release a new joint solution at the end of 2014.

The Ask Watson function gives opportunities of service of self-service in a chat and online interaction that allows clients quickly, in one click, without addressing the call center operator to solve the arisen problems. At the same time, not to miss the client who can leave a system after permission of the request the IBM Watson system has a notification option about need of switching to the operator. Thus there is always an opportunity not to lose the potential buyer of products and company services. Switching the client to the operator, a system will be guided by information on experience of the specialist, his qualification and those channels on which the employee usually accepts a call.

"The new solution of Genesys and IBM Watson capable "remember" a huge number of information on the company and also understand and process natural language queries, can make customer service more convenient and operational. 'Artificial intelligence' opens new interesting and really ample opportunities for contact centers: prompt and exact replies to client requests, automation of work and expense reduction due to reduction of number of operators, - Saushkin Oleg, the official representative of Genesys in Russia and the CIS comments. – For us work with IBM Watson – very much the innovation and interesting project"

IBM will invest $1 billion in the Watson supercomputer

The IBM company made the decision to select the huge amount of $1 billion for Watson development. To master this money, the corporation will create new division of Watson Business Group which tasks will include "development and commercialization of cloud cognitive innovations". The headquarters of a new business unit will be located in Manhattan. According to representatives of IBM, the number of the employees working on the Watson project will be increased from several honeycombs to two thousand people. The senior vice president of IBM Michael Rhodin will head Watson Business Group.

IBM hopes that in the next 10 years income from the Watson project will reach $10 billion a year. As for work of division of Watson Business Group, at first his specialists will be engaged in adaptation of the supercomputer for such areas as health care, finance, travel, telecommunications and retail.

2012: Watson as service

Representatives of IBM reported in the spring of 2012 that the corporation intends to offer clients installation of a system of artificial intelligence Watson based on private and hybrid clouds.

The Watson system became widely known last year, having won Jeopardy game show! its best participants. Now the corporation begins to bring it to the commercial market. The WellPoint medical insurance company became the first user of Watson, but in this pilot project a system was unrolled on infrastructure of IBM. And recently IBM and Citigroup began the new project on application of Watson in the financial sphere.

The cloud systems can be applied as to the processing and data analysis necessary for Watson, and to work of Watson at data storage on the platform of the client. But the company does not offer option with placement of Watson on the customer's servers — a system will be on sale only in the form of service. Even entered into IBM for this purpose the new term: WaaS — "Watson as service".

Most of people knows Watson only on the game Jeopardy!, but in fact this hardware-software system can be modified and adapted for the most different applications, analysts explain. However, for effective work it needs a large number of data and training at the client's tasks.

2011: IBM Watson beat people in a quiz "The game"

The IBM Watson supercomputer won in 2011 against the strongest players in the second match of an intellectual quiz of Jeopardy (the Russian analog - "The game"), having become the winner of a three-day tournament.

On the amount of two games Watson earned 77 thousand dollars, having more than three times overtaken champions of participants of Jeopardy - Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

In the first game of the Watson tournament beat rivals: only in the first round Rutter managed as equals with a computer system to answer questions from different areas of knowledge.

After the first round of the second game leadership was taken by Jennings who gathered 8.6 thousand dollars, Watson by this moment on the account had 4.8 thousand dollars, and Rutter - 2.4 thousand dollars. In the second round the computer bypassed Jennings (Watson has 23.44 thousand dollars against 18.2 thousand dollars at Ken).

In the final round consisting of one question with the cost appointed by players, the computer left no chance for people on a victory. Even if Jennings would go for broke and won, and Watson, on the contrary, was mistaken, in "moneybox" of the machine it would be one dollar more. However, all three participants answered the last task truly.

As well as more often than the rivals was mistaken in the previous game, Watson: it gave failing response three times. Twice Rutter was mistaken, and only once Jennings incorrectly answered. However on a total quantity of the correct answers of Watson out of competition - 29, against 18 at Jennings and 13 at Rutter.

Success of Watson in the Jeopardy tournament became confirmation of progress in area of hands-off processing of the requests formulated in a natural language.

For the similar systems it is important to select difficult and interesting tests. The television quiz show Jeopardy was a great option! (American prototype of "The game"). In the report the general approach of DeepQA to search of the answer is described and also several private methods understand. We will trace how IBM Watson learned to answer questions better and better. In conclusion we will discuss possibilities of practical application of DeepQA technologies in business and the social environment - in particular, we will discuss the last results of use of the cognitive systems in medicine.

According to the published report 2011 IBM Tech Trends Report about trends of development of technologies, developers around the world consider that unique analytical opportunities of IBM Watson technology will change the industries which manage huge data arrays. Survey participants specified education and health care as the industries which can benefit as much as possible from application of innovations of Watson – along with the sphere of financial services, sciences about life (biology, biochemistry, immunology, genetics, physiology, ecology, etc.) and public sector which also got on upper positions of this list.

The report of 2011 Tech Trends Report contains survey results more than 4 thousand. IT professional from 93 countries and 25 industries. Respondents shared the opinion on future trends of information technology development. Results of a research reflect, among other, the growing need for the qualified technical specialists for such areas as the business analysis, social business, mobile calculations, software technologies open source and cloud computing.

According to the report, respondents consider the software for the business analysis the most widely used technology from those which appeared in poll. Really, the business intelligence is integrated almost into each business process of the organizations today. Most of respondents consider that development of program tools for the business analysis will be still widely demanded. The report also notes the growing importance of software platforms open source, such as Linux and Apache Hadoop, for developers of analytical business applications.

The report provides to specialists in information technology field and business the perspective list of technologies and professional competences which will be in the greatest demand in the next years. Among the main results and outputs of a research which are given in the report 2011 IBM Tech Trends Report:

• 87% of respondents consider that the technologies based on the open source software and open standards will play a key role in future practice of application development.
• Within the next two years over 75% of the organizations will implement and will use technologies of cloud computing.
• More than a half (51%) of respondents said that implementation and mastering of solutions based on cloud computing is a part of their strategy in mobile technologies.
• Regional cultural distinctions have an impact on recognition and distribution of social business. (adoption rate) India (57%) is recognized the leader in a percentage indicator of "acceptance of innovations in the field of social business", it is followed by the United States (45%) and China (44%). The strongest resistance to acceptance of such innovations is shown by Russia (19%).

"The received results are obvious. Mobile technologies, cloud computing, social business and a business intelligence were beyond the niche status, and now are a part of the priority directions of development of IT infrastructure of any modern organization — Jim Corgel, the general manager of division of IBM Independent Software Vendors and Developer Relations noted. — The IT professional capable to develop and improve knowledge and skills necessary for work with these innovative technologies will be ready to conform to the growing requirements of business in the next years".

IBM developerWorks, on-line community IBM for IT professional, is the largest and the most visited global Web portal where they, among other, can raise and expand the qualification. Over 8 million specialists in information technology field visit this resource to get free access to software tools and the source code, IT standards and the best practical techniques for the most different industries. Visitors of IBM developerWorks also actively use the various on-line training and training rates, including on open software technologies, to a business intelligence, cloud computing and mobile calculations. Besides, business partners of IBM and entrepreneurs can use access to expanded training courses, solutions and resources of the international network of 40 innovation centers IBM for the purpose of further development of the professional competence.

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