Twitter wants to do a better job of policing bullies who tweet, and Twitter vice-president of data strategy Chris Moody declared from the keynote stage at IBM's InterConnect conference this week that it is using IBM Watson technology to help meet that challenge. "We have had some abuse on the platform. We've talked very publicly in the in the last few months and said our number 1 priority is stop the abuse," he said. Twitter announced updates earlier this month to help reduce abusive content, by being more proactive in identifying those who use Twitter to harass others. The company explained the recent updates in a blog post that made clear how it could intervene earlier when it sees abuse.

Twitter is partnering with IBM to use its AI technology Watson on its continuous fight against online abuse, the site's vice-president of data strategy Chris Moody said at IBM's InterConnect conference this week. Watson can analyze and interpret data, including unstructured text, images, audio and video, which could help Twitter stop trolls. "Watson is really good at understanding nuances in language and intention," said Moody. "What we want to do is be able to identify abuse patterns early and stop this behavior before it starts." Moody said "early testing is super promising" and will return to the conference next year to talk about results of the tool.

Wherever you fall along these lines, you want to make sure that your taxes are accurately being prepared to ensure that you experience no issues with the IRS. H&R Block has introduced a new partnership with IBM Watson to bring its customers a new and improved tax preparation experience. Watson is an artificial intelligence technology that continuously learns from the data fed into its system. As more customers' tax information is processed by Watson, it will apply the knowledge it has retained in order to give tax preparers the best advice for their customers. The technology is so in-depth because it was given a large amount of data about tax laws and codes, allowing it to gain deeper insight into the varied situations that affect an individual's tax return.

IBM and PlayFab are teaming up to deliver better insights about gamers based on analysis from IBM's Watson artificial intelligence platform. Seattle-based PlayFab provides backend services for connected games on mobile devices and PCs. It provides things game developers need to run their games -- like player data storage, player relationship management, tournaments, in-game commerce, and leaderboards. IBM will take that data, crunch it, and come up with insights that help developers run their games better. It's a new way for IBM to participate in what market researcher Newzoo says is a $91 billion market.

As part of IBM's annual InterConnect conference in Las Vegas, the company is announcing a new machine learning course in partnership with workspace and education provider Galvanize to familiarize students with IBM's suite of Watson APIs. These APIs simplify the process of building tools that rely on language, speech and vision analysis. Going by the admittedly clunky name IBM Cognitive Course, the class will spend four weeks teaching the basics of machine learning and Watson's capabilities. Students will be able to take the class directly within IBM's Bluemix cloud platform. "Not everyone knows what to do with a Watson API," says Bryson Koehler, CTO of IBM Watson & IBM Cloud.

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We met Tanmay while he was giving a keynote speech to our tech associates (yes, he gives keynote speeches around the world). Please enjoy Tanmay's article on 5 machine learning services powered by Watson. Computers have never been good at understanding non-mathematical language, but a branch of artificial intelligence aims to change that. Machine learning (ML), a subset of artificial intelligence, aims to enable computers to understand natural language and allow them to reason for themselves. Leading this initiative are services like IBM's Watson, an open platform accessible to developers around the world. In today's world, everyone is using machine learning technologies on a daily basis, whether they realize it or not.

Solutions integrate patient-level data from EHRs to assess risks and other factors. At HIMSS17 in Orlando, IBM Watson Health unveiled a series of value-based cloud solutions aimed at helping providers, health plans, and employers better manage their healthcare costs and quality. The solutions integrate patient-level data from EHRs and other sources to create a better picture of patient populations, risk factors, and other red flags at the individual, group, and population level in order to improve patient outcomes under the new value-based payment models. "Healthcare organizations are operating in a complex and fluctuating business environment, one in which the insights they need to succeed can be hidden amidst an avalanche of disparate and siloed data," says Deborah DiSanzo, General Manager of IBM Watson Health. The new applications, available later this year, will include: Provider Performance Manager, Engagement Manager, Bundled Payments Forecasting and Management, and Custom analytics.

It happened recently as I was looking at demonstrations of two very interesting new technology-based companies that help automate due diligence processes. They are both classic examples of the type of technological innovation that's happening at lightning speed in the legal industry today. They are addressing an enormous pain point in the industry: the mind-numbing burden of manually reviewing thousands of contracts as part of a due diligence mandate. It's the kind of work that has provided a good living for generations of young law firm associates, but it is not efficient and, being human-based, not always very accurate. These two new companies are using technology to make that review more efficient and accurate, by analyzing, summarizing, and extracting structured data from big masses of unstructured and wildly inconsistent documents. To the extent the technology works, it's because it imposes some kind of order on the non-standard work of human lawyers.

Matt Coatney is a technology executive, business advisor, entrepreneur, author, and speaker. His focus is on bringing advanced artificial intelligence and analytic technologies to market. He has co-founded three companies, advised several others, and contributed to the early success of two different tech startups. Matt has also launched data analytics products designed for the fields of life sciences, healthcare, government, finance, and law. Currently Matt is the VP of Services for Exaptive; he previously was the IT strategy lead for global law firm WilmerHale, and was in charge of technology and operations for a legal search product at LexisNexis.