Will Watson be Your Jarvis One Day? IBM Takes on Siri

 

Smartphones will soon get a taste of the Watson 2.0 supercomputer technology by IBM. We can thank recent developments in battery power and computing efficiency for that.

Watson has been testing in the medical field, in particular to find a diagnosis and treatment of cancer. And unlike Apple Siri, which is available to all, IBM has decided to be a bit more exclusive with their software, only making it available to higher-end clients in the corporate world. IBM is hoping that the system will be able to answer any questions about finances, telecomm

unications and health care, just to name a few.

One of the problems the Watson seems to have is trying to downsize its processing while trying to increase software efficiency at the same time. The system currently needs 10 IMB Power750 server racks. If that number doesn’t mean anything to you, picture around 6,000 desktops and numerous smartphones operating all at once. The software needs this much power in order to generate answers to any and every single question possible. Although the product is geared towards a higher-end client, there is no way anyone would pay the big bucks and use all that power just for one program.

Another hurdle Watson will have to jump over is the amount of time it requires to create a “learning curve” on the subject it is currently focusing on. IBM has a lot of work on its hands, but the company seems to have a plan in store. The company will combine different technologies it created, like natural language processing and image recognition. In other words, don’t expect to see this product on the market tomorrow. IBM said Watson will not be ready for another several years.