IBM Preps Watson 2.0 as a Supercharged Version of Siri
IBM is apparently envisioning a future version of its Watson knowledge engine to become available on what we would describe today as future superphones. Like Siri, Watson would work via speech recognition and send requests back to a data center to find an answer. IBM said in a Bloomberg interview that image and video recognition could aid speech recognition for more detailed answers as well as wider application fields.
The goal of Watson 2.0 is to reduce the power consumption needed by the engine. “The power it takes to make Watson work is dropping down like a stone,” Bernie Meyerson, IBM’s vice president of innovation, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “One day, you will have ready access to an incredible engine with a world knowledge base.”
This incredible engine may be able to tap analytics and services we cannot quite imagine today. For example, your phone may be able to provide basic physician services - which could be enabled by combining speech, video and image recognition features, while having access to medical records to an individual as well.
Today, Watson is still very much a large mainframe application and IBM says that the efficiency levels are not quite there for a large-scale, mainstream service. IBM did not say when Watson will be efficient enough to be feasible to be run on a smartphone.
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Wolfgang Gruener is an experienced professional in digital strategy and content, specializing in web strategy, content architecture, user experience, and applying AI in content operations within the insurtech industry. His previous roles include Director, Digital Strategy and Content Experience at American Eagle, Managing Editor at TG Daily, and contributing to publications like Tom's Guide and Tom's Hardware.
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glasssplinter This would be great until crapple sues them and shuts it all down. Remember crapple invented every speech recognition algorithm.Reply -
dalethepcman Why would we want to run Watson on a phone, when it could be run from the amazon cloud and we could just give it instructions / requests?Reply -
IndignantSkeptic dalethepcmanWhy would we want to run Watson on a phone, when it could be run from the amazon cloud and we could just give it instructions / requests?Reply
When they say run on a smartphone they probably mean accessible via a smartphone. Most of the work would probably be done by remote servers especially in the beginning although as smartphones become more powerful then perhaps more of the workload could be shifted to them. -
dalethepcman ReplyIBM did not say when Watson will be efficient enough to be feasible to be run on a smartphone.
Wolfgang's article quoted using "run on" as in natively running an application. You don't run facebook on your computer you access it.
Let me quote the line from the source. "The next version, dubbed “Watson 2.0,” would be energy- efficient enough to work on smartphones and tablets. " Key words being work on, not run on. The distinction is subtle, yet huge. -
basketcase87 dalethepcmanWhy would we want to run Watson on a phone, when it could be run from the amazon cloud and we could just give it instructions / requests?Reply
"Like Siri, Watson would work via speech recognition and send requests back to a data center to find an answer."
I highly doubt watson will be literally running on a smartphone any time soon, considering the mindboggling specs of the hardware it's currently running on. -
Chairman Ray Hopefully Watson does not infringe upon any Apple patents for Siri. After all, they are in completely separate leagues in terms of quality and functionality.Reply