Google Passes Go: Wins the 2016 Jeopardy Trophy
January 29, 2016
IBM Watson smoked the humans on Jeopardy. The issue of post production does not halt the Watson PR machine.
Now the Alphabet Google thing has crushed the game of Go, smashing the likes of GnuGo, Fuebo, Pachi, Zen, Crazy Stone, and Fan Hui.
Winning games is one way to demonstrate the seeming magic of smart software.
Navigate to “AlphaGo: Mastering the ancient game of Go with Machine Learning.” The write up from a real live Googler states:
Go is a game of profound complexity. The search space in Go is vast — more than a googol times larger than chess (a number greater than there are atoms in the universe!). As a result, traditional “brute force” AI methods — which construct a search tree over all possible sequences of moves — don’t have a chance in Go. To date, computers have played Go only as well as amateurs. Experts predicted it would be at least another 10 years until a computer could beat one of the world’s elite group of Go professionals.
Profound. Yes.
How “strong” is the Google method, Watson?
Ah, Watson, you don’t have an answer. Google obligingly reveals:
To answer this question, we played a tournament between AlphaGo and the best of the rest – the top Go programs at the forefront of A.I. research. Using a single machine, AlphaGo won all but one of its 500 games against these programs. In fact, AlphaGo even beat those programs after giving them 4 free moves head start at the beginning of each game. A high-performance version of AlphaGo, distributed across many machines, was even stronger.
Net net: Humans are destined to be losers. Humans are inferior. Those Google self driving cars and their “incidents”? Humans are responsible.
Eliminate the human from activities and machine life is much better.
Question: What happens if AlphaGo and Watson hook up and produce some spawn? What if Facebook and Baidu’s smart software join in the fun? Worth making a video of the encounter I assume.
Stephen E Arnold, January 29, 2016
Weekly Watson: Smart T Shirts and Maybe Digital Unmentionables
January 25, 2016
IBM’s economic news has been an island of stability for doom sayers. The company’s 15th consecutive quarter of revenue declines does not require an economic Stonehenge to predict.
I was delighted to see a bit of good news about IBM’s continuing effort to publicize Watson. As you know if you read this blog, Watson is a confection of open source, home brew code, and acquired technology. Assembled in a Lego like fashion, Watson does recipes, cures cancer, and performs miracles which would make St. Jerome, the patron saint of librarians, uncomfortable.
The latest medical achievement-to-be of Watson is described in “IBM and Under Armour Look to Transform Healthcare Tech.” I love the use of the words “look” and “transform.” Each is full of promise, hope.
Here’s the passage I highlighted in sunshine yellow:
Backed by IBM Watson, UA Record will serve as a personal health consultant, fitness trainer and assistant by providing athletes with timely, evidence-based coaching around sleep, fitness, activity and nutrition, including outcomes achieved based on others ‘like you’. A future version of the UA Record app powered by IBM Watson could be the first system to assess and combine a variety of factors that affect health and fitness programmes such as physiological and behavioural data, nutrition, expert training and environment.
And what does UA do to make money?
According to the company’s Web site:
These tools…provide the most comprehensive ecosystem of fitness products yet made.”
The tools complement the tops, bottoms, shoes, and accessories for athletes and those who yearn to be athletes.
Watson is a versatile technology it seems. The only hitch in the git along is that the Web site of Watson’s new best pal appears to feature an Apple iPhone app. Well, perhaps Watson is on the job, just not yet front and center.
The IBM PR machine cares not. Watson it appears has a contribution to make in the shoe, undershirt, and unmentionable department. Ah, Watson, you are a frisky sort.
Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2016
IBM and Severance: An Arbitrary Winter Chill
January 22, 2016
I read “IIBM Alters Severance Terms.” The idea is that an IBMer gets a review and learns that s/he is no longer needed. The reason may be incompetence; the reason may be downsizing; or the reason may be part of the IBM’s desire to outsource. Who knows? Saving money makes sense after 15 consecutive quarters of revenue decline and the massive spending to make Watson a household word, pay off Bob Dylan, and visit every possible media outlet with the tidings of gladness and joy about cognitive computing.
The write up points out:
Employees who took the IBM Separation Allowance Plan used to get 6 months pay. Now it’s one month.
That sounds fair. Some money may be better than zero money. The write up quotes the IBM explanation, which I find just thrilling for the employees soon to be affected by the change:
The separation allowance payment available under the Individual Separation Allowance Plan, regardless of the circumstance under which ISAP is offered, is one month of pay. For employees covered by IBM’s Growth Driven Profit-sharing program or on any type of sales or services incentive plan or any special program which is offered in lieu of the IBM Growth Driven Profit-sharing program, the one month of pay made under ISAP is paid in a lump sum, using the employee’s base pay amount (also known as reference salary) (full or part time). Any separation allowance payment under any of IBM’s plans is in lieu of any other form of separation pay to which the employee is, may, or might have become entitled. An individual separation allowance is not an automatic entitlement and will not accrue or be paid for reasons other than those listed above. No separation allowances under any of IBM’s plans will accrue if an employee has outstanding indebtedness to IBM or debts for which IBM may be responsible. However, if an employee makes arrangements satisfactory to IBM to repay any such outstanding debts, a separation allowance may be paid. Indebtedness to IBM could include, but is not limited to, a debit commission balance, an IBM US Mobility Plan equity loan, an unpaid balance on an installment purchase of an IBM product, credit card debt, excess tax loan, an outstanding travel expense account or failure to return IBM-owned property. In the event of rehire by IBM or any of its subsidiaries as a regular employee within 30 days after separation of employment with a payment under the Plan, IBM reserves the right to require repayment of the full ISAP payment.
Did IBM Watson assist in the writing of these statements? The conditionals add a bit of spice. Just what one needs as Joshua makes its way to IBM Federal Systems in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Stephen E Arnold, January 22, 2016
Microsoft Cortana Update Draws Users to Bing
January 22, 2016
The article titled Microsoft Updates Windows 10 Cortana With New Search Tools for Better Results on IB Times heralds the first good news for Bing in ages. The updates Microsoft implemented provide tremendous search power to users and focused search through a selection of filters. Previously, Cortana would search in every direction, but the filters enable a more targeted search for, say, applications instead of web results. The article explains,
“It’s a small change, but one that shows Microsoft’s dedication to making the assistant as useful as possible. Cortana is powered by Bing, so any improvements to the Windows 10 assistant will encourage more consumers to use Microsoft’s search engine. Microsoft made a big bet when it chose to deeply integrate Bing into Windows 10, and there is signs that it’s paying off. After the June 2015 Windows 10 launch, Bing attained profitability for the first time in October 2015.”
That positive note for Bing is deeply hedged on the company’s ability to improve mobile search, which has continued to grow as a major search platform while desktop search actually peaked, according to research. Microsoft launched Cortana on Android and iOS, but it is yet to be seen whether this was sufficient action to keep up the Bing momentum.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 22, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
The Total Patent Counts for 2015 Are in, and IBM Wins (Again)
January 21, 2016
The article on Reuters titled IBM Granted Most U.S. Patents in 2015, Study Finds confirms the 23rd consecutive win in this area for IBM. Patents are a key indicator of the direction and focus of a given business, and top companies take these numbers very seriously. Interestingly, 2015 was the first year since 2007 that the total count of U.S. patents fell. Following that trend, Microsoft Corp’s patents were also 31% lower than past totals, and as a result the company took only tenth place on the list. The article provides some other details on patent rankings,
“Among the technology giants notable for their intellectual property, Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google stepped up its patent activity, moving to the fifth position from eighth in 2014, while Apple Inc (AAPL.O) stayed at the 11th position. Patents are sometimes the subject of legal battles, and investors, analysts and enthusiasts alike track patents closely to see what companies are looking to develop next. Following IBM, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) and Canon Inc (7751.T) rounded off the top three spots…”
There are no big surprises here, but one aspect of patents that the article does not cover is whether patents count as revenue? We were under the impression that money did that trick, but the emphasis on patents seems to suggest otherwise.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 21, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Watson Weekly: Entrepreneurs, Watson Will Help You
January 17, 2016
I think that folks should help themselves. IBM is a giant struggling to generate revenues. The company’s approach to innovation is to buy companies which duplicate functions the firm already has. I assume that IBM’s senior executives ask Watson what to do, and s/he suggests, “Buy more companies like those you already own, pilgrim.”
I read “How IBM Watson Can Help Developers and Entrepreneurs with its Services”. I learned that
Technology giant IBM has been helping people from all walks of life,, especially developers who are prototyping and building Cloud-based cognitive computing applications, through Watson since its launch in 2011.
Okay, going on six years of helping.
Even better, IBM is now
allowing a growing ecosystem of developers, advertising professionals, businessmen, bankers, students, entrepreneurs, tech enthusiasts and people from various professions to use this advanced cognitive computing platform.
So who is being helped? IBM or the developers? The write up clears this up for me:
Kambhatla [An IBM cognitive computing wizard] described Watson Developer Cloud as one stop shop for developers. The developers can also bring their own data to many of the services, to help train Watson about a specific domain or industry and customize API models to speed up and simplify the development of cognitive apps. For instance, Watson can be used to help play relevant advertisements anywhere, be it shopping complex, roadside or amusement park based on image of people in the vicinity, as it can guess approximate age, gender, etc.
Okay, but it has been five years. Where’s the revenue? Let’s ask Watson. Okay, but I can’t find a public general purpose IBM Web site to allow that to happen.
Gee, maybe Watson’s advice is too darned good to make available to the addled goose? The PR folks obviously have access. The senior managers have access. Kambhatla has access. Why the shroud of unknowing, dear Big Blue?
Stephen E Arnold, January 17, 2016
IBMs CFO Reveals IBMs Innovation Strategy: Why Not Ask Watson
January 11, 2016
The article on TechTarget titled IBM CFO Schroeter on the Company’s Innovation Strategy delves into the mind of Martin Schroeter regarding IBM’s strategy for chasing innovation in healthcare and big data. This year alone IBM acquired three healthcare companies with data on roughly one hundred million people as well as massive amounts of data on medical conditions. Additionally, as the article relates,
“IBM’s purchase of The Weather Co.’s data processing and analytics operations brought the company a “massive ingestion machine,” which plays straight into its IoT strategy, Schroeter said. The ingestion system pulls in 4 GB of data per second, he said, and runs a lot of analytics as users generate weather forecasts for their geographies. The Weather Co. system will be the basis for the company’s Internet of Things platform, he said.”
One of many interesting tidbits from the mouth of Schroeter was this gem about companies being willing to “disrupt [themselves]” to ensure updated and long-term strategies that align technological advancement with business development. The hurtling pace of technology has even meant IBM coming up with a predictive system to speed up the due diligence process during acquisitions. What once took weeks to analyze and often lost IBM deals has now been streamlined to a single day’s work. Kaboom.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 11, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Watson Weekly: Revenue Wait Watcher?
January 9, 2016
I read another bit of IBM Watson public relations’ fluff. The story was “CES 2016: IBM Announces Watson as a Personal Fitness Coach.” I assume that IBM Watson’s ability to craft recipes with tamarind will go from the kitchen to the gym with aplomb.
According to the article:
The news signals the rapid adoption of Watson technology by consumers and to illustrate this, announced that Under Armour and IBM have developed a new cognitive coaching system. Watson, will serve as a personal health consultant, fitness trainer and assistant by providing athletes with timely, evidence-based coaching about health and fitness-related issues. Where Watson differs from other systems is that it determines outcomes achieved based on others “like you.” It integrates IBM Watson’s technology with the data from Under Armour’s Connected Fitness community – a vast digital health and fitness community of more than 160 million members.
I hope that IBM lifts the weight from the shoulders of IBM stakeholders who want to be buoyed on a rush of new revenues. Vast too. A consumer product?
Stephen E Arnold, January 9, 2016
IBM and Yahoo Hard at Work on Real-Time Data Handling
January 7, 2016
The article titled What You Missed in Big Data: Real-time Intelligence on SiliconAngle speaks to the difficulties of handling the ever-increasing volumes of real-time data for corporations. Recently, IBM created supplementary stream process services including a machine learning engine that comes equipped with algorithm building capabilities. The algorithms aid in choosing relevant information from the numerous connected devices of a single business. The article explains,
“An electronics manufacturer, for instance, could use the service to immediately detect when a sensor embedded in an expensive piece of equipment signals a malfunction and automatically alert the nearest technician. IBM is touting the functionality as a way to cut through the massive volume of machine-generated signals produced every second in such environments, which can overburden not only analysts but also the technology infrastructure that supports their work.”
Yahoo has been working on just that issue, and lately open-sourced its engineers’ answer. In a demonstration to the press, the technology proved able to power through 100 million vales in under three seconds. Typically, such a high number would require two and a half minutes. The target of this sort of technology is measuring extreme numbers like visitor statistics. Accuracy takes a back seat to speed through estimation, but at such a speed it’s worth the sacrifice.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 7, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
IBM Watson Will See Soon
January 6, 2016
I read “Watson to Gain Ability to See with Planned $1B Acquisition of Merge Healthcare.” This mid 2015 deal will, according to the IBM announcement:
Watson will gain the ability to “see” by bringing together Watson’s advanced image analytics and cognitive capabilities with data and images obtained from Merge Healthcare Incorporated’s medical imaging management platform.
Interesting. IBM has a number of content management platforms; for example, FileNet. Reconciling the different types of images within Watson’s content intake system will keep some folks busy at Big Blue. The last diagnostic test I had generated a live stream of video images of various body parts chugging along. Movies!
Watson is a capable system, right?
Stephen E Arnold, January 6, 2016
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