Question Answering
IBM's Watson Takes On Yet Another Job, as a Weather Forecaster
Weather Underground makes weather forecasts based on 8,000 public and 192,000 privately constructed weather stations across 195 countries. The company is adding 400 new stations across Asia, South America, and Africa, and it'll be integrating all of them with IBM's Watson language-learning AI (the one that played Jeopardy! So what exactly does this mean? It is creating a global weather forecast system tied into a number of worldwide businesses, and with that, a hope to outmaneuver one of the most costly, damaging variables in global industry--weather. When IBM bought The Weather Company/WU last October it immediately announced its intention to merge WU's 200,000 weather stations with Watson through the Internet of Things.
New tourism app has IBM's Watson guide you around Orlando
There's plenty to do in Orlando, Florida besides infect yourself with Zika -- what with Universal Studios, Disney World, the Epcot Center and SeaWorld. And a new app, backed by the supercomputing power of IBM's Watson, will tell you how to get the most out of every one of your minutes in the Sunshine State. The Visit Orlando app is designed to help visitors figure out what they want to do while in the city. Users can ask the app virtually any question within reason and receive helpful travel and booking tips in reply. Want to eat somewhere with live music?
IGNITION 2016: IBM Watson General Manager will unveil the future of artificial intelligence
We live in a world where artificial intelligence isn't science fiction -- it's reality. And, as Alex Konrad of Forbes previously reported, IBM Watson General Manager David Kenny is currently striving to make sure that AI becomes a "service" soon. Watson is IBM's artificially intelligent supercomputer (not to mention a Jeopardy champion). According to Forbes, IBM and Kenny expect Watson to expand into a 10 billion business within the next ten years. We're thrilled to announce that Kenny will be speaking about how AI is fueling the next massive wave of digital disruption and innovation at IGNITION 2016, Business Insider's flagship annual conference.
Can IBM Watson Win Business from Banks?
NEW YORK (Reuters) โ IBM is in an unusual fix in telling big U.S. banks they can use its Watson software of Jeopardy-winning fame as a cost-saving solution: bankers say they like it, but cannot afford it. IBM is in good company. Banks are in the fifth year of their belt-tightening campaigns that began in 2011, chasing billions of dollars' worth of savings, and vendors that offer everything from technology to janitorial services are getting squeezed. With persistently low interest rates hurting revenue and businesses like bond trading hemmed in by new regulations, few on Wall Street expect the austerity to end any time soon. For IBM the irony lies in the fact that senior bank executives say they believe its artificial intelligence software could help them achieve cost-cutting goals in coming years, but are not ready to pay for Watson today.
Can IBM Watson Win Business from Banks?
NEW YORK (Reuters) โ IBM is in an unusual fix in telling big U.S. banks they can use its Watson software of Jeopardy-winning fame as a cost-saving solution: bankers say they like it, but cannot afford it. IBM is in good company. Banks are in the fifth year of their belt-tightening campaigns that began in 2011, chasing billions of dollars' worth of savings, and vendors that offer everything from technology to janitorial services are getting squeezed. With persistently low interest rates hurting revenue and businesses like bond trading hemmed in by new regulations, few on Wall Street expect the austerity to end any time soon. For IBM the irony lies in the fact that senior bank executives say they believe its artificial intelligence software could help them achieve cost-cutting goals in coming years, but are not ready to pay for Watson today.
IBM Watson diagnoses a rare cancer physicians missed
After conventional methods of detection failed, a team of Japanese researchers from the University of Tokyo's Institute of Medical Science used IBM Watson to successfully diagnose a 60 year-old woman where physicians were unable to, according to NDTV. The patient was initially diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, but treatments for that condition proved ineffective. Watson was able to identify the more rare form of leukemia she suffered from and ultimately provide a different, more successful form of treatment, according to the report. Artificial intelligence systems like IBM Watson may still be a ways off from being regularly used in hospitals, as they require large amounts of comparative data, according to Engadget. However, when given access to that type of information, AI systems can work quickly -- Watson produced the accurate diagnosis for the Japanese patient after comparing her genetic data against a database of 20 million researcher papers in just ten minutes.
IBM's Watson AI saved a woman from leukemia
IBM's Watson has done everything from winning at Jeopardy to cooking exotic meals, but it appears to have accomplished its greatest feat yet: saving a life. University of Tokyo doctors report that the artificial intelligence diagnosed a 60-year-old woman's rare form of leukemia that had been incorrectly identified months earlier. The analytical machine took just 10 minutes to compare the patient's genetic changes with a database of 20 million cancer research papers, delivering an accurate diagnosis and leading to proper treatment that had proven elusive. Watson has also identified another rare form of leukemia in another patient, the university says.
XPRIZE launches AI 2020 competition with IBM Watson
What do you see when you think about artificial intelligence? With a new competition, XPRIZE and IBM Watson challenge us to think slightly more pragmatically (or at least less apocalyptically dystopian) about the implications of artificial intelligence research on the future of humanity. To date, more than 1,000 people have registered to form teams with plans to tackle such issues as health, climate, transportation, space travel, robots, city planning, surgery, education and even civil rights. Because the competition is an open challenge, teams are expected to come up with criteria on which they will ultimately be judged in 2020. Some teams may be backed by corporations or angels, while others may go it alone as a team.