IBM's Watson looks for a role in the home

Not content with helping cure cancers and winning Jeopardy, Watson wants to get inside our heads and our homes, whispering instructions into our wireless headsets and helping us do our laundry. IBM will work with appliance maker Whirlpool, TV and camera company Panasonic, wireless headphone designer Bragi and Withings owner Nokia to add Watson's cognitive computing capabilities to their products, the company said. Those cognitive capabilities could help devices talk with one another, or with us. For example, a washing machine could tell a dryer what program to use for the clothes it has just washed, or tell its owner when to order more detergent. Computer vision techniques could help security cameras distinguish between friends and strangers or identify suspicious activity.