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Summary: Next time you bring up Artificial Intelligence and your non-data scientist friends all say "Watson" here's some perspective you can offer. Their understanding of AI and Watson is very likely to be inaccurate. Here's what you need to know to set them straight. When conversation with my non-data scientist friends turns to AI it's almost inevitable that at least one will remark on the wonders of Watson. To many of the uninformed, Watson is synonymous with AI and clearly it's already here.

When conversation with my non-data scientist friends turns to AI it's almost inevitable that at least one will remark on the wonders of Watson. To many of the uninformed, Watson is synonymous with AI and clearly it's already here. So without getting so technical that their eyes glaze over, and that can happen pretty fast, here's a little bit of explanation you can use if you're caught in the same circumstance. The Watson that lives in the imagination of so many folks is the Watson that won the widely televised contest on Jeopardy in 2011. Fewer people are aware that the month following its televised debut, Watson went to Washington and played an untelevised set of matches against members of the House of Representatives where it also won.

Using that information, water authorities or companies can target areas or homes where people are wasting water, and send specialized educational materials to let people know how they can cut down on water waste. Some of OmniEarth's customers have already started seeing results, with some reporting a 15 percent reduction in water use, just by using the conservation messages. Many people, Fentzke said, may not even realize that they're wasting water. There could be bad meters, leaks, or bad settings on automatic sprinkling systems that are contributing to the problem. "We've found it to be very effective in targeting people who may not even know that they're inefficient," Fentzke said.

IBM's Watson system will help doctors diagnose rare illness faster by scanning through huge medical records to pull out relevant information. "We don't need more physicians, we need more IT power." It's a controversial statement for anyone with an interest in healthcare to make, let alone for a senior doctor heading up a centre for rare and undiagnosed diseases. But Dr Jürgen Schäfer, in charge of tackling the most mysterious conditions that arrive at the centre in the University Hospital in the German town of Marburg, is used to solving seemingly intractable problems. But now, rather than identifying the illnesses that have baffled numerous doctors before him, Schäfer - sometimes called the German'Dr House' -- has worked out how to crack another tricky medical problem: how to treat a spiralling number of patients, each with a lengthy and complex health history, without employing a whole new team of doctors.

Researchers at Microsoft achieved what they say is a breakthrough in speech recognition claiming they've developed a system that's as effective or better than people with professional transcription skills. The software's word error rate (WER) is down to 5.9 percent -- an improvement from the WER of 6.9 the team reported in September. The milestone was enabled with the new Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, the software that enables those speech recognition advances (as well as image recognition and search relevance). Microsoft announced both developments two weeks ago, though the timing wasn't the best as IBM was holding its huge World of Watson event in Las Vegas. Watson, of course, is Big Blue's AI system made famous several years ago when it appeared on Jeopardy and, in advance of its latest rollout, made the talk-show circuit including CNN and CBS's 60 Minutes, where IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty talked up Watson's own achievements including the ability to discover potential cancer cures deemed not possible by humans, among other milestones.

We are just starting to discover the countless ways we can apply cognitive computing to healthcare,

Last week I attended IBM (IBM) World of Watson as both a speaker and an attendee, and today as I sit in my neighborhood Starbucks (SBUX) thinking about everything, all I can say is WOW! This was one of the most interesting, inspiring and amazing events I have ever attended. And we are still in the very early stages of Watson, Cognitive and AI. I invite you to follow me as I learn more and write more about the wonderful world of Watson, all the companies that work with it and how it will change our industries, our businesses and our lives. As a wireless analyst and columnist, I come at this world of Watson from the wireless, telecom, internet and television angle.

Health care executives from IBM Watson and Athenahealth athn debated that question onstage at Fortune's inaugural Brainstorm Health conference Tuesday. In addition to partnering with Celgene celg to better track negative drug side effects, IBM ibm is applying its cognitive computing AI technology to recommend cancer treatment in rural areas in the U.S., India, and China, where there is a dearth of oncologists, said Deborah DiSanzo, general manager for IBM Watson Health. For example, IBM Watson could read a patient's electronic medical record, analyze imagery of the cancer, and even look at gene sequencing of the tumor to figure out the optimal treatment plan for a particular person, she said. "That is the promise of AI--not that we are going to replace people, not that we're going to replace doctors, but that we really augment the intelligence and help," DiSanzo said. Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush, however, disagreed.

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