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IBM Watson powers Hilton's robotic concierge 'Connie'
IBM Watson is training for yet another job at the Hilton McLean in Virginia. The hotel has recently welcomed a new concierge named "Connie," you see, and it's actually a Nao robot powered by IBM's AI. Connie, named after the chain's founder Conrad Hilton, can greet guests when they arrive and answer questions about hotel amenities, schedule and services. It was designed to improve the more it interacts with people by storing every question guests ask for future reference. Besides answering inquiries about the hotel, Connie will also be able to recommend tourist spots, restaurants and other destinations, since it has access to WayBlazer's travel platform.
IBM's iOS sleep-tracking app is powered by Watson
Are your poor sleeping habits messing up your day-to-day life? If you own an Apple Watch or iPhone, you can find out with the SleepHealth app from IBM Watson. The app is the first for IBM's Health Cloud, a program it launched last year with Apple and Johnson & Johnson. The idea of the program is to collect data for users, researchers and doctors using Apple's open-source ResearchKit and the sensors in iOS devices. SleepHealth, which IBM is doing with the American Sleep Apnea Association, is aimed at studying how sleep quality affects productivity, alertness, medical issues and overall health.
IBM's Watson can sense sadness in your writing
Artificial intelligence won't be truly convincing until it can understand emotions. What good is a robot that can't understand the nuances of what you're really saying? IBM thinks it can help, though. It just gave Watson an upgrade that includes a much-improved Tone Analyzer. The AI now detects a wide range of emotions in your writing, including joy or sadness. If you tell everyone that you're fine when you're really down in the dumps, Watson should pick up on that subtle melancholy. Watson is also better at spotting social tendencies like extroversion, and studies whole sentences (important for context) rather than looking at individual words.
XPRIZE is challenging A.I. to save the world
If the thought of artificial intelligence conjures up nightmares the likes of Terminator 2 and HAL 9000, XPRIZE's latest competition could disabuse you of that notion. Today at TED2016, XPRIZE is announcing a new contest that invites teams from around the world to come up with ways artificial intelligence can help solve some of the world's most challenging problems. The competition is done in collaboration with IBM and is thus called the IBM Watson A.I. XPRIZE: the Cognitive Computing Competition.
Ford CEO goes full tech by joining IBM board
Ford CEO Mark Fields has been very vocal about his desire to move the automaker beyond just selling cars to folks. Instead he envisions it becoming a mobility company with pilot programs that offer car sharing and is researching autonomous vehicles. At CES, Fields told Engadget that "it is about developing relationships." It looks like one of those relationships is blooming. IBM announced that Fields has been elected to its board of directors.
IBM buys Ustream to power its new video services division
Well, that was fast. Hours after reports surfaced that IBM was planning to nab video livestreaming company Ustream, the deal is official. The internet broadcast outfit will join IBM's new Cloud Video Services division for live and on-demand video with "consistent delivery across global industries." Ustream targeted business customers to flex its streaming muscle, including live CES coverage for a few big name companies at this year.
IBM might buy live video service UStream for $130 million
The first name that comes to mind when you hear "live-streaming video" might be Twitch, but even despite how that service has grown, it isn't exactly something you'd use for video conferencing or at work. Regardless of how much you want to drop a few Kappas to spice up a meeting. Which is why the Fortune report stating IBM is looking to buy UStream (which has been targeting business customers of late) doesn't seem too far-fetched. The publication's sources peg the deal in the neighborhood of $130 million cash in addition to "possible earn-outs and employee retention packages." It's a pretty paltry sum when compared against Amazon's $970 million Twitch purchase.
Even your academic advisor might one day be a robot
We Google things we're too lazy to remember or ask another human. We've become accustomed to asking Siri and Cortana about the weather. The current generation of artificial intelligence can pull facts from the web, keep track of your appointments and even crack jokes. What if there were a virtual assistant to help you make real-life decisions, like whether you should start a brewery or go to business school? Project Sapphire, a collaboration between IBM and the University of Michigan, is aimed at building an artificially intelligent academic advisor that guides undergraduate students through their course options, helps pick extracurricular activities and eventually dishes out advice on their careers.
IBM's supercomputer knows what'll be hot this holiday
After elbowing its way into hospitals and restaurants, it was inevitable that IBM's supercomputer would turn its attention towards the retail business. IBM has launched Watson Trend, a service that harnesses Watson's deep learning smarts in order to discover the hottest and most desirable products to buy this holiday season. The machine will work out what's hot (and what's not) by trawling the web, looking through everyone's public conversations on social media, blog posts and product reviews. Once the information has been found, it'll run sentiment analysis to determine how people really feel about their new smartphones, TVs and tablets to work out the ones folks love the most.
Mainframe computing pioneer Gene Amdahl dies at 92
Gene Amdahl, a pioneer of mainframe computing, died from pneumonia this week at age 92. Dr. Amdahl is known for is work with IBM, more specifically on the IBM 704, IBM 709 and other projects. He was also the chief architect on the System/360 series, a line of mainframe computers that would become the most successful in IBM's history. In fact, it's inner workings would influence computer design in the years that followed. After two stints with IBM, Dr. Amdahl set up the Amdahl Corporation that would directly compete with his former employer in the mainframe market. His machines were less expensive and faster that those of IBM while still being compatible with the company's mainframe software. He also formulated Amdahl's law which is used to predict the theoretical maximum speed improvement across multiple processors in parallel computing. Dr. Amdahl is survived by his wife, two daughters, five grandchildren and a brother. [Image credit: Marcin Wichary/Flickr]
Watson's melt-in-your-mouth Moroccan almond curry
'Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson' is a collaboration between IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. As part of an ongoing series, we'll be preparing one recipe from the book until we've made all of them. Wish us luck.While it's no great surprise to see Watson conjuring up unusual flavor blends, I was surprised to find such subdued in this Moroccan almond curry. On paper the recipe looked to be leaning toward bland, but its clever combination of all the elements worked. Traditional Moroccan lamb curries have intense flavors highlighted by garlic, onion, sometimes ginger, cinnamon and then sweetened with honey and dried apricot to balance lamb's strong taste. Here, though, Watson prescribes small amounts of cardamom, cumin, turmeric. All told, the recipe is comprised of four separate parts, which you'll later pile together. These include: the curry-braised lamb, a pea puree, green salad and plain old basmati rice. This is a great choice if you want to show off for guests, and yet it's easy too: Because the meal is broken up in stages, much can be done the day before. It's also mild enough that even the pickiest eater will find some joy in the dish. I fed it to a couple kids under ten and they both ate it up.
IBM is buying The Weather Company's tech to integrate with Watson
IBM's Watson AI has been a Jeopardy champion and a very creative chef, next up, Watson the weather man. Well, sort of. IBM just announced that it plans to acquire The Weather Company's products and technology, which includes Weather.com and The Weather Underground, all of which will serve as the backbone of the new Watson Internet of Things unit. The Weather Channel isn't part of the deal, but it will license data and analytics from IBM. While weather is the key word with this acquisition, the real driving force behind it is data -- and lots of it. The Weather Company's mobile apps are the fourth-most popular in the US, processing 26 billion requests daily, according to IBM. That gives Watson, and IBM's other cloud services, a rich library of data to analyze and process. The Weather Company also built up a large platform to handle all of that juicy information, which IBM will be able to take advantage of.
WSJ: IBM gives Chinese officials (limited) access to its source code
IBM has reportedly started holding demonstrations to show off an unspecified product's source code to people outside the company -- particularly to officials from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Asian superpower has been asking tech companies for access to their programs' codes, which are typically closely guarded secrets, for quite some time. Apparently, it wants to make sure the US hasn't installed backdoors on American-made software as a way to spy on its citizens.
IBM unlocks the secret to carbon nanotube transistors
Following Moore's law is getting harder and harder, especially as existing components reach their physical size limitations. Parts like silicon transistor contacts -- the "valves" within a transistor that allow electrons to flow -- simply can't be shrunken any further. However, IBM announced a major engineering achievement on Thursday that could revolutionize how computers operate: they've figured out how to swap out the silicon transistor contacts for smaller, more efficient, carbon nanotubes.
IBM's Watson heads to SF with upgraded speech and vision analysis
Almost a year since IBM unveiled a huge new home for its Watson AI in New York City, the company is bringing the Jeopardy champ west. The new headquarters, dubbed Watson West, will launch in San Francisco next year and will serve as a regional hub for communicating with startups, VCs and the rest of Silicon Valley. It'll also be the new global HQ for IBM's Commerce business, which will focus on bringing Watson's capabilities to retailers and more consumer-focused companies. Watson has also gotten much smarter over the past year: For one, it's a much better conversationalist, with the ability to understand intent and meaning in language, as well as produce more realistic sounding speech. Watson has also received some major "vision" updates, with improved image and facial recognition. Devs can now also have Watson analyze photos and video from social media. Finally, Watson's new "Concepts Insight" service lets apps connect to deeper ideas, moving beyond the mere surface-level interpretations of text.
Hewlett Packard will cut another 30,000 jobs during split
As it continues the process of splitting itself into two distinct companies, Hewlett-Packard has announced that it'll fire between 25,000 and 30,000 more employees. That figure is believed to be on top of the 55,000 roles that were earmarked for the door when the plan was announced last October. If you're not caught up on the news, here's the tl:dr version: the ailing hardware maker is becoming two smaller firms in the hope that it can survive in a world that no longer loves the PC. Hewlett Packard Enterprise will produce software, services and servers for the business crowd, much like IBM, while HP will take over the personal computing and printer divisions.
IBM names a new leader of its Watson Health unit
Former Philips Healthcare CEO Deborah DiSanzo is the new General Manager of IBM's Watson Health unit, which aims to provide the company's cognitive computer system to health care professionals and patients. At IBM, DiSanzo leads more than 2,000 employees and is charged with scaling Watson Health globally and expanding IBM's Watson Health Cloud initiative. The Watson Health Cloud attempts to collect large amounts of patient data and make it easier for doctors and companies to make health decisions. IBM has teamed up with Apple (specifically, ResearchKit and HealthKit), Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic and other companies for the Cloud initiative.
IBM wires up 'neuromorphic' chips like a rodent's brain
IBM has been working with DARPA's Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) program since 2008 to develop computing systems that work less like conventional computers and more like the neurons inside your brain. After years of development, IBM has finally unveiled the system to the public as part of a three-week "boot camp" training session for academic and government researchers.
IBM wants to cool data centers with their own waste heat
Those "do not eat" desiccate packets of silica gel that keep shoe boxes dry could soon help keep data centers cool. IBM has launched the THRIVE project with aims to do just that by creating a heat pump that runs on waste heat.
Watson will assess your personality based on your writing
Turns out IBM's Watson can not only critique your writing, but use it to assess your personality, too. The supercomputer has a service called "Personality Insights" that can analyze your traits from written text. It needs at least 100 words of your own writing in either English or Spanish to generate a report, as well as guess your needs and values. For instance, I plugged in a diary entry into the service's demo website, and the service declared me "social, generous and imperturbable," assertive and with little regard for tradition. As you might have guessed, though, results change depending on the piece you use: Watson declared me as "inner-directed and skeptical" when I plugged in one of my Engadget pieces.
