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Tesco wants robots and wearables to help shape the supermarket of the future
For Britain's supermarket chains, it's no longer just a case of selling food, it's about how you can do it better. Tesco has long thought about how technology can give it an edge over its rivals, but it's now experimenting with robotics, wearables and cognitive computing in an attempt to secure future success. That's according to Mike McNamara, Tesco's chief information officer, who revealed that the company has become the latest in a long line of retailers to leverage IBM's Watson supercomputer to explore new ideas using old data. Tesco's Labs division, the team behind its Google Glass app and other tech trials, fed Watson "thousands" of recipes and ingredients and asked it to come up with some unique meal ideas. The supermarket is already trialling smartwatches in a bid to better manage stock, but it looks increasingly likely that machines will take over such jobs in the future. McNamara believes robots that can gauge depth and height could free up time for stockroom associates, but that also brings another danger -- the risk that they'd replace workers completely.
Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson in The Great Ace Attorney
The Great Ace Attorney features the greatest sleuth of all time, Sherlock Holmes, and his companion, Dr. Watson – though this time around the good doctor is an 8-year-old girl genius named Iris Watson, Famitsu reveals (via Kotaku). The site has the first images of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Iris Watson in The Great Ace Attorney, a prequel series that stars Ryuichi Naruhodo, an ancestor of the franchise's hero, Phoenix Wright. Watson lives with Holmes and she is the author of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a role that aligns with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's own canon. Holmes and Watson will be part of the game's "collaborative deduction" system, the site reports. Alongside Naruhodo, Holmes and Watson, The Great Ace Attorney stars a new heroine, Susato Mikotoba. The Great Ace Attorney is due out in spring 2015 for 3DS in Japan. [Image: Famitsu]
IBM lets scientists pay to play with its thinking supercomputer
IBM's Watson promises to usher in a new era of "cognitive computing," but, so far, all the system has demonstrated is a knack for game shows. Now, however, IBM has announced Watson Discovery Advisor, a cloud-based service that'll enable researchers to harness those smarts to do more than put Ken Jennings out of a job. Using the platform, scientists can ask Watson natural-language questions, sending the system to scour every publicly available research paper ever written in every available field. Digesting this information, Watson is then able to identify connections that it would have taken a lifetime for a person to find, which promises to accelerate the speed of scientific discovery. In one instance, the Baylor College of Medicine used Watson to crunch six years worth of cancer protein research into "a matter of weeks." Now all we need to do is scrape together the cash to ask the supercomputer the ultimate question...
IBM gives Watson a new job: reintroducing soldiers to civilian life
Watson supercomputer has a new and very important job, one that's a lot different from beating Jeopardy champions or whipping up BBQ sauce recipes: helping vets return to normal life. IBM has recently formed a partnership with the USAA (the financial services firm for soldiers and their families) to create an app that can answer ex-soldiers' questions about finances and the like. For instance, a vet could ask Watson how he can get a job, what his benefits are, what his insurance covers or what the GI Bill entails. Even though Watson's been wearing many hats for years, this is the first time anyone developed a consumer app based on the supercomputer. This app pulls data from more than 3,000 documents that deal with military transitions, in hopes of making things easier for the 155,000 soldiers who retire from service every year. [Image credit: Getty/Mie Ahmt]
IBM's Watson supercomputer will help you cook in this new recipe app
Conventional recipe apps are all well and good if you're not sure what to eat in the first place, but what if you're looking to experiment? IBM thinks its Watson supercomputer can offer some advice, so it's teaming up with the editors at Bon Appétit to test Chef Watson, an app that leans on the cognitive machine's food-making skills to spice things up. Rather than make you choose from a small, predefined set of recipes, you set some criteria and let Watson do most of the hard work; it produces 100 meal suggestions based on both the ingredients you've allowed and the cooking styles you'd prefer.
IBM's Watson computer makes a delicious BBQ sauce
We know through first-hand experience that IBM's Watson supercomputer can make a fine meal, but it's apparently an ace at condiments, too. Fast Company has tried Bengali Butternut BBQ Sauce, a recipe chosen by Watson to maximize flavor through complimentary (and fairly uncommon) ingredients. The result is a "delicious" concoction unlike what you'd normally throw on your food -- butternut and white wine give it a sweet taste, while tamarind and Thai chiles add punch that lasts beyond your last bite.
IBM's Watson supercomputer can help settle your debates
IBM's Watson supercomputer is already good at finding answers to tough questions, but it's going one step further: it can now argue an issue when there's no clear answer. A new Debater feature lets the machine take a given topic, scan for relevant articles, and automatically deduce the pros and cons based on the context and language of any claims. In a demo, Watson took 45 seconds to scour millions of Wikipedia articles and make cases both for and against limiting access to violent video games. It's likely that many people would take much longer, even if they're well-informed on the subject.
IBM's Watson supercomputer will soon be your personal shopper
Watson had been a doctor, a geneticist, a game show contestant and even a chef in the past. But now IBM's supercomputer has a new career: personal shopping. IBM has partnered with digital commerce firm Fluid to develop a cloud-based app called Expert Personal Shopper (XPS), which uses Watson's brains to answer buyers' highly specific questions. In short, the computer with many hats now plays the role of a sales associate when you're shopping online. IBM and Fluid are currently working with several consumer brands, but The North Face will be the first to feature the technology on its website. When the outdoor clothing and equipment company launches XPS, you can ask it questions like you would an assistant at a mall. If you needed a recommendation on the best equipment to use for a five-day cross-country trip, or need to know the best tent to use if you're hiking with family, including kids, then Watson's got your back. It's unclear when XPS will launch exactly, but IBM has allotted $100 million in funds to develop that and a variety of other cognitive apps. All parties involved are planning to develop it further for mobile applications and devices.
IBM sends Watson on a genetic quest to find the best cancer treatments
Sure, IBM's Watson crunches data for mobile apps and powers food trucks, but its owners are constantly looking for important studies that can put its cognitive computing expertise to the test. With the recent announcement of a clinical trial studying ways to deliver personalized care to brain cancer patients, the Jeopardy-conquering supercomputer appears to have found that next major challenge. In collaboration with New York Genome Center, Watson will be tasked with trawling archives of medical literature and clinical data, using its patten recognition skills to identify the best cancer treatments based on a patient's genetic make-up. Teams of scientists had manually undertaken the process before, but it's exactly the kind of problem Watson was designed to help solve. IBM says it will begin a trial later this year and hopes to open its findings to doctors across the world.
Daily Roundup: SXSW wrap-up, touring the Sony Archives in Tokyo and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
IBM puts Watson in charge of its SXSW food truck, we taste-test (video)
We know Watson has some Jeopardy skills, but putting IBM's supercomputer in the kitchen? That's a little different. Here at SXSW, the company's set up a "Cognitive Cooking" food truck in partnership with the Institute for Culinary Education (ICE). Using Watson's recipe system, which combines three elements (ingredient, cuisine and type of dish) to create unconventional new fare, chefs here in Austin are churning out delicacies such as ceviche fish and chips and Vietnamese apple kebabs.
IBM's layoffs may include up to 25 percent of its hardware group
IBM recently sold its x86 server business to Lenovo, and that unfortunately has consequences for the company's workers. The computing pioneer has confirmed to CNET that it's cutting jobs as it concentrates its efforts on "cloud, analytics and cognitive computing." While IBM isn't revealing the scale of the layoffs, a source tells CNET that they include as much as 25 percent of the Systems and Technology division that produces servers. It's a sad day for those affected by the cuts, but there is a silver lining here. Spokesperson Doug Shelton notes that IBM's rapidly growing cloud computing and Watson outfits are creating additional jobs of their own -- one door is opening as another closes.
IBM wants to put the power of Watson in your smartphone
Watson, IBM's Jeopardy-conquering super computer, has set its sites on mobile apps. Not long ago, the recently created Watson Business Group announced that would offer APIs to developers to create cloud-based apps built around cognitive computing. Now IBM is launching a competition to lure mobile app creators to its new platform. Over the next three months the company will be taking submissions that leverage Watson's unique capabilities like deep data analysis and natural language processing to put impossibly powerful tools to the palm of your hand. IBM is hoping for apps that "change the way consumers and businesses interact with data on their mobile devices." It's an ambitious goal, but considering the way Watson spanked Ken Jennings, it seems something that is well within its reach. The machine has already changed the way we view computers and artificial intelligence, not only by winning Jeopardy, but by making cancer treatment decisions and attending college. Now it wants to make your smartphone smarter than you could ever hope to be.
IBM spins Jeopardy-dominating Watson robot into a billion dollar business group
Ever since it was unveiled four years ago, Watson has been the factotum of the robotics world, working a slew of gigs in hospitals, on Wall Street and the like. Now IBM's ready to give its supercomputer what may well be its toughest gig to date. The company is pumping $1 billion into its new Watson Business Group, which is "dedicated solely to the development and commercialization of cloud-delivered cognitive innovations." The division will be headquartered in Manhattan, focused on applying the computer's smarts to apps aimed at such diverse fields as healthcare, finance, travel, telecom and retail. Apparently the old 'bot hasn't quite settled on one gig after all.
IBM preparing to launch a Watson cloud service, lease out APIs to developers
Need a little help from a supercomputer? You just might get it: IBM is getting ready to release a more powerful version of its Watson supercomputer, and it'll be available for rent. According to the PC World, the company is working on a Watson-based cloud service that developers can use to build richer, more interactive applications. The project uses a smaller, more scaleable version of Watson to build cognitive supercomputers as needed -- potentially leaving a smaller footprint. IBM is already working with partners to kick the service off, specifically Fluid, who is creating a Watson-powered retail assistant that's said to actively converse with customers to help them make "more informed buying decisions." Developers familiar with RESTful APIs shouldn't have too much trouble using Watson, IBM's Rob High told the PC World, although it won't be exactly like traditional programming. "Cognitive systems are different in that they have the ability to simulate human behavior. For the most part humans have had to adapt to the computer. As we get into cognitive systems we open up the aperture to the computer adapting to the human." IBM has yet to specifics on when the Watson-powered cloud will be available, or how much it'll cost developers to work with the Jeopardy star. Hopefully, the cognitive computer will still be able to put together a tasty pastry.
IBM's Watson uses Jeopardy skills to become House-like medical diagnostician
IBM's Watson hasn't been in medical school long, but he already has two jobs. Teaming with the Cleveland Clinic, Big Blue researchers have developed WatsonPaths, a diagnosis and education project, and Watson EMR Assistant, a tool for delving deep into medical records. WatsonPaths is the more ambitious of the two, drawing on question-answering skills acquired from its Jeopardy days to examine medical cases from all angles. It'll gather data from journals, texts and on-the-job training, helping doctors improve differential diagnoses and create better treatments. When first deployed, WatsonPaths will be used as a classroom training tool after physicians have decided what's wrong with a patient, but doctors can already see its real-world potential as a clinician. Researchers are also taking advantage of Watson's natural language talents to scour medical records with the Watson EMR Assistant project. The goal is to analyze unstructured patient records -- which can easily pass 100MB over a patient's lifetime -- with "a deep semantic understanding of the content." That'll take a lot of the grunt work out of parsing such data, letting physicians more easily see the relationship between clinical concerns, lab results and medications in order to provide better care. Despite all that prowess, Watson will mostly remain a learning tool and research project pending further development at the clinic. If the researchers are thinking primary care, however, they may want to bump its people skills.
Watson ponders careers in cooking, drug research as IBM makes it earn its keep
While mad game show skills are nice and all, IBM has started to nudge Watson toward the door to begin paying its own freight. After a recent foray into finance, the publicity-loving supercomputer has now brought its number-crunching prowess to the pharmaceutical and pastry industries, according to the New York Times. If the latter sounds like a stretch for a hunk of silicon, it actually isn't: researchers trained Watson with food chemistry data, flavor popularity studies and 20,000 recipes -- all of which will culminate in a tasting of the bot's freshly devised "Spanish Crescent" recipe. Watson was also put to work at GlaxoSmithKline, where it came up with 15 potential compounds as possible anti-malarial drugs after being fed all known literature and data on the disease. So far, Watson projects haven't made Big Blue much cash, but the company hopes that similar AI ventures might see its prodigal child finally pay back all those years of training.
Memorial Sloan-Kettering puts Watson to use to aid cancer treatment decisions
We heard almost a year ago that Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center had turned to IBM's Watson as a tool to help doctors provide the best cancer treatment recommendations, and it looks like those plans are now starting to be put into practice. IBM, along with WellPoint, Inc. and Memorial Sloan-Kettering, have today announced what they describe as the "first commercially developed Watson-based cognitive computing breakthroughs." More specifically, they've developed a system that allows Waston to draw on a wealth of medical information and quickly provide evidence-based treatment recommendations to doctors. And we do mean a wealth of information; as IBM explains, Watson has spent the last year digesting more than 600,000 pieces of medical evidence and two million pages of text from 42 medical journals, and it has the ability to parse some 1.5 million patient records covering decades of cancer treatment history. That all takes the form of two separate "Watson-based" products to start with, one of which IBM expects to be used by more 1,600 providers by the end of this year. You can find more details on those at the source links, and get a more general overview of the project in the video after the break from IBM.
Watson heading to college, honing administrator-pranking algorithms
There comes a time in every young supercomputer's life when he or she must leave the house. Having taken the world of game shows by storm and made appearances at places like Sloan-Kettering, Citigroup and the Cleveland Clinic, Watson's ready to go to college. The advance three-year schooling will find a modified version of IBM's computer making its way to New York State's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where it will be learning lessons in English and math. Amongst the course load are plans to sharpen Watson's cognitive skills and ability to manage data. The residency will also offer students a chance to get to work closely with one of the supercomputers that will one day rule us all.
QNX builds in-car speech framework with AT&T's Watson, knows our true intentions
QNX wants to put an end to in-car voice systems that require an awkward-sounding syntax to get the job done. As part of its CES launches, it's rolling out a framework for its speech recognition technology leaning on AT&T's Watson engine. By offloading the phrase interpretation to AT&T's servers, any infotainment system with the framework inside can focus on deciphering the speaker's intent -- letting drivers spend more time navigating or playing music, instead of remembering the necessary magic words. QNX will roll out the voice element as part of its CAR platform at an unspecified point in 2013. We'll have to wait until car and head-end unit designers implement the platform in tangible hardware, but the new speech system will hopefully lead to more organic-sounding conversations with our cars. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
