[JPMorgan_]

Hopefully this app would be available on BB10, if or when it gets released for smartphones. What do you think???


IBM working on Watson app for smartphones

After conquering Jeopardy, battling patent trolls, and chasing down health insurance fraudsters, IBM now plans to bring Watson to smartphones. Watson is an artificial intelligence that is capable of answering very complex questions using natural language answers. In essence, IBM is hoping to build a better, faster, and more professional/enterprisey version of Apple�s Siri, the voice-controlled assistant that debuted on the iPhone 4S.

Each IBM Watson installation is a 10-rack supercomputer with a total of 2880 processor threads (90 Power7 CPUs clocked at 3.5GHz, each with eight cores, and each core with four threads). There is 16TB of RAM, and the entire thing is embarrassingly parallel � it can process 500 gigabytes of data per second. Watson runs IBM�s DeepQA software, which basically pores through millions of books and documents � dictionaries, encyclopedias, research papers, enws documents � and then uses that data to answer questions with remarkable speed and accuracy.

Now, don�t worry � IBM isn�t trying to shrink the room-sized Watson down to the size of a smartphone. Instead, we�re simply looking at a smartphone app that directly interfaces with an internet-connected Watson installation. It would work in a very similar way to Siri or Google Now, which both send your voice clip off to the cloud for processing.

In theory, Watson�s question answering ability would utterly blow Siri and Google Now out of the water, though. While Siri can set your alarms, Watson can parse a patient�s charts and provide clinical diagnoses and pharmaceutical prescriptions. Where Siri can tell you whether you�ll need an umbrella, you could ask Watson whether now is the right time to plant your crops � or for a complete walkthrough on how to fix your toaster.

As far as I can tell, IBM could roll out a Watson smartphone app today � if the company could work out how to price and deliver it. The problem with Watson is that it takes a long time to learn a given subject � and even after months of feeding data into Watson, it can still only answer questions that belong to that specific domain. The Watson that can diagnose cancer can�t answer questions about planting crops � you�d need a complete Watson installation just to answer agricultural queries. Considering each Watson costs around $3 million, that�s an expensive proposition.

As a result, and given IBM�s business and enterprise expertise, the smartphone version of IBM Watson will almost certainly be a business app, rather than a consumer app. There�s always the possibility that, say, a mobile carrier buys an IBM Watson and then forwards the service to its customers. You can also foresee a future where Microsoft uses a Watson to provide excellent, instantaneous customer service to its customers.

Moving forward, IBM tells Bloomberg that the plan is to give Watson more �senses.� At the moment Watson can only respond to strings of text (i.e. typed in). Watson 2.0 (no ETA) will hopefully have voice recognition (courtesy of a partnership with Nuance, the company behind Siri�s voice recognition module), and image recognition � so instead of asking a question, Watson will simply interpret whatever your smartphone�s being pointed at, be it a broken toaster, an empty field, or a lump in your breast.

IBM working on Watson app for smartphones | ExtremeTech

[anon(2757538)]

Wasn't Watson in a QNX Connected car?

[jrohland]

I'd buy a block of answers from Amazon. That would be sweet. Google is like capitalism; it's terrible but everything else is worse. Give me Watson so I can get answers without adwords and useless spam links.

[JPMorgan_]

Yes, It was

[James Nieves]

Different Watson.

AT&T's Watson is what was in the QNX connected car.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[terminatorx]

Very interesting! I am sure the die hard Apple fans will still claim that Siri is better though.

[GTiLeo]

Who knows maybe Watson was the siri like voice in BB10. Doubt it but we can dream

[Slash82]

Siri or Watson maybe nice to have!

But I still prefer the Blackberry "one handed"-control with BB10 over it!

That's more important to me, than a talking phone.

[TheScionicMan]

VLingo does a lot of that stuff, but I still don't use it. I can almost bet most of our older iPhone users don't use Siri. Trying to teach it is painful. "No speak while holding the button... No, now wait, it is trying to answer your last failed attempt..." etc.

[kfh227]

Watson is the kind of tech that only IBM can create. Apple integrates other peoples tech, not their own. Apple could never develop such a monolithic application. IBM has 50 years of process improvement that provides a competitive edge.

[RJB55]

50 years and then some, IBM's first commercial computers were shipped in the early '50s and tabulation machines and calculators decades before that. Watson is named after T.J. Watons Sr. the founder of IBM I believe as is IBM's Watson Research.

[Knightcrawler]

I could see this being a subscriber service. Pay a monthly fee for access to a specific version of Watson, whether it's medical, agricultural, business oriented, whatever. A truly (artificially) intelligent personal assistant, catered to your specific business need. Imagine it, a vast database of resources that you can interact with verbally and naturally, in the palm of your hand.

[spike12]

Gene Rodenberry would be happy with this..

[James Nieves]

Siri-Assistant was so much better before Apple bought it. And they bought it merely to neuter it so they could sell its value/keep it from some of their users to give them further incentives to upgrade their and buy another 'iPhone'

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[bk1022]

Interogator: Watson, should I buy an iPhone 4 now or wait for the iPhone 5?

Watson: Split the difference and buy the S III version now.

[pblakeney]

I could see this being a subscriber service. Pay a monthly fee for access to a specific version of Watson, whether it's medical, agricultural, business oriented, whatever. A truly (artificially) intelligent personal assistant, catered to your specific business need. Imagine it, a vast database of resources that you can interact with verbally and naturally, in the palm of your hand.

Adding then to the truly "Business" phone experience the BB brings....