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We are excited to join forces with Slack to host a series of workshops across Europe. These are one-day workshops, focused on making software that improves the workplace. The workshops will begin with API overviews from both companies during which Watson developer advocate Yacine, will dish out some handy tips on getting started quickly with many of the Watson services. We'll then stay to help you brainstorm, scope, and eventually build out your projects. Everyone can expect to walk away with a working prototype built on top of Slack and Watson Developer Cloud APIs.

PC Mag recently interviewed Rob High, IBM Watson's Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Thanks to High's experience with Watson, IBM's artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer, he is one of the preeminent thinkers in the AI space. In his interview, High spoke about how technology, and AI in particular, is transforming jobs, culture, and life for humanity. For High, one of the biggest misconceptions the public holds about AI is the sort of dystopian worldview we see in Hollywood and, in some cases, from other thinkers in the field. He points out that AI is not replacing the human mind, but augmenting human intelligence and amplifying its reach: "[I]f you look at almost every other tool that has ever been created, our tools tend to be most valuable when they're amplifying us, when they're extending our reach, when they're increasing our strength, when they're allowing us to do things that we can't do by ourselves as human beings."

Since their first appearance decades ago, chatbots have come a long way thanks to leaps in natural language processing and generation (NLP/NLG), the branches of artificial intelligence that enable us to interact with computers in a conversational manner. Today AI-powered chatbots have established a prominent role in various fields, including customer service, healthcare, banking and more. Meanwhile, the technologies that power chatbot assistants are growing smarter and more efficient. I had a chance to talk with Rob High, Chief Technology Officer at IBM Watson, on the evolution of chatbots and where the trend is leading to. He shared some very interesting insights on the prospects and challenges that lie ahead.

To gauge the future of IBM (NYSE: IBM) one needs to understand its cognitive computing platform, Watson.

This episode of Fast Forward was recorded in the IBM Watson Experience Center here in New York City. My guest was Rob High, the Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of IBM Watson. High works across multiple teams within IBM, including engineering, development, and strategy. He is one of the most lucid thinkers in the space of artificial intelligence, and our conversation covered many of the way that technology is reshaping our jobs, our society and our lives. Read and watch our conversation below. Dan Costa: What is the dominant misconception that people have about artificial intelligence? Rob High: I think the most common problem that we're running into with people talking about AI is they still live in the world where I think Hollywood has amplified this idea that cognitive computing, AI, is about replicating the human mind, and it's really not. Things like the Turing test tend to reinforce that what we're measuring is the idea of AI being able to compete with fooling people into believing that what you're dealing with is another human being, but that's really not been where we have found the greatest utility. This even goes back to, if you look at almost every other tool that has ever been created, our tools tend to be most valuable when they're amplifying us, when they're extending our reach, when they're increasing our strength, when they're allowing us to do things that we can't do by ourselves as human beings. That's really the way that we need to be thinking about AI as well, and to the extent that we actually call it augmented intelligence, not artificial intelligence.

When people in an emergency situation call into their local 911 operations center, there might be another "brain" listening in on the call. The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International, which has more than 29,000 members, tapped IBM to bring Watson into their software. APCO recently announced that APCO International's new guide card software called APCO IntelliCommä will use IBM Watson Speech-to-Text and Watson Analytics to improve the scripts used by 911 operators. The guide card system provides guidance to 911 operators on what to ask and say to gather needed information to access specific emergency call types. Essentially, the software helps operators "provide rapid and customized instructions so callers get the fast, consistent, and appropriate information they need and expect in an emergency," according to a press release.

July 11, 2017 Written by: Chris O'Connor An IoT platform must connect devices, must collect data, must handle thousands of vendors, dozens of standards and must be able to scale to millions of devices sending billions of messages. To deliver true value beyond the basics, it must add cognitive, security, privacy, insight generation and close loop automation. With these capabilities and the supporting technology advancements, the IoT platform becomes an agent of transformation for a business. Organizations in the midst of, or planning for, an IoT deployment understand the complexity of finding a solution that is holistic yet customizable to their own unique requirements. A solid platform is the linchpin in connecting endpoints, capturing meaningful data, and pulling all together into a central dashboard that allows you to glean actionable insights.

In treating brain cancer, time is of the essence. A new study, in which IBM Watson took just 10 minutes to analyze a brain cancer patient's genome and suggest a treatment plan, demonstrates the potential of artificially intelligent medicine to improve patient care. But although human experts took 160 hours to make a comparable plan, the study's results weren't a total victory of machine over humans. The patient in question was a 76-year-old man who went to his doctor complaining of a headache and difficulty walking. A brain scan revealed a nasty glioblastoma tumor, which surgeons quickly operated on; the man then got three weeks of radiation therapy and started on a long course of chemotherapy.

'How do I control the lights?' is my first, rage-infused question when staying in almost any hotel room. Closely followed by'how do I shut off the air conditioning?' As yet, both questions have gone unanswered. Walls, alas, cannot talk, so I am left to fiddle with the plastic key thing that for some reason also operates the room's electricity, put on an extra layer or six, and grope around in the dark. My ineptitude in the realm of all things practical isn't confined to hotel rooms. I'd also like to be able to schedule car maintenance as and when the bleeping thing on the dashboard lets me know something's up.