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.

As artificial intelligence (AI) begins to power more technology across industries, it's been truly exciting to see what our community of developers can create with Watson. Developers are inspiring us to advance the technology that is transforming society, and they are the reason why such a wide variety of businesses are bringing cognitive solutions to market. With AI becoming more ubiquitous in the technology we use every day, developers need to continue to sharpen their cognitive computing skills. They are seeking ways to gain a competitive edge in a workforce that increasingly needs professionals who understand how to build AI solutions. It is for this reason that today at World of Watson in Las Vegas we announced with Udacity the introduction of a Nanodegree program that incorporates expertise from IBM Watson and covers the basics of artificial intelligence. The "AI Nanodegree" program will be helpful for those looking to establish a foundational understanding of artificial intelligence.

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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No human could possibly read the entirety of medical literature, personal health records, and case file histories that might inform a doctor's professional opinion when trying to save a cancer patient's life. Rob Merkel, health care and life sciences lead at IBM Watson, the company's machine learning group, demonstrated the computer system's ability to digest a vast amount of material, weigh alternatives, and spit out possible treatment options for patients on Wednesday. "What we see here are patient cases," said Merkel, standing in front of an open laptop in front of an audience at Fortune's inaugural Brainstorm Health conference in San Diego, Calif. Get Brainstorm Health Daily, Fortune's health and biopharma newsletter. Merkel pulled together a profile for hypothetical person diagnosed with stage 2B breast cancer.

Stanford Question Answering Dataset (SQuAD) is a new reading comprehension dataset, consisting of questions posed by crowdworkers on a set of Wikipedia articles, where the answer to every question is a segment of text, or span, from the corresponding reading passage. With 100,000 question-answer pairs on 500 articles, SQuAD is significantly larger than previous reading comprehension datasets. We've built a few resources to help you get started with the dataset. Download a copy of the dataset (distributed under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license): To evaluate your models, we have also made available the evaluation script we will use for official evaluation, along with a sample prediction file that the script will take as input. To run the evaluation, use python evaluate-v1.1.py

A company that develops Software as a Service to help consumers navigate health insurance options is rolling out a new solution that uses machine learning and the computing capabilities of IBM Watson. Welltok is offering its Virtual Benefits Agent, developed by its Applied Cognitive Computing Practice. The company says the solution that addresses the majority of health coverage and preventative care questions before they reach a customer service representative, presenting health plans with the potential to save millions of dollars. The Virtual Benefits Agent was created by Welltok's Applied Cognitive Computing Practice, which applies proprietary technologies, IBM Watson and expertise to solve complex healthcare challenges. Recently, the team worked with a major national health plan, building on an existing framework and leveraging available content, to expedite development of the Virtual Benefits Agent capability.

What does a world with IBM Watson look like? With Watson, the world is getting healthier, safer, cleaner, more creative and even more personal. Doctors, governments, educators and businesses everywhere are working with Watson to outthink their biggest challenges.