Ray Kurzweil on IBM’s Watson

Ray Kurzweil has held many hats. Accomplished scientist, entrepreneur, among the foremost thinkers in the realm of artificial intelligence and most recently as Director of Engineering at Google.

The naturally held belief is that Kurzweil will use his 50 years of expertise in AI and bring it together with the learnings from Knowledge Graph to revolutionize semantic search for Google.

Fascinating interview of how he intends to do it here, by Forbes journalist, Robert Hof.

However one part of this enthralling interview stood out for me. 

“I will say that IBM’s Watson [the famous Jeopardy!-playing computer] does an impressive job of actually understanding semantic language, and it shows the feasibility of doing this. All the knowledge that Watson had was not hand-coded in some computer language. The idea that you could write down all this common-sense knowledge … turns out to be very brittle, because it doesn’t reflect the ambiguities sufficiently in language and common-sense knowledge.

Watson didn’t work that way. It actually got its knowledge by reading Wikipedia and several other encyclopedias, and then played a game that is not a narrow task. It’s really equivalent to answering questions. The queries can be very diverse. For example, it got the query, “A long, tiresome speech delivered by a frothy pie topping,” and it answered, “What is a meringue harangue?” Watson got a higher score in Jeopardy! than the next best two human players put together.”

IBM continues to lead on Patents- Surprise mover Samsung

The results are out. Once again and for the 20th year in a row, IBM has ranked number 1 in the number of patents won by a company in one calendar year.

In 2012, IBM amassed a mind blowing 6,478 patents which continues to demonstrate the organizations continued focus and commitment to research and development. Additionally as per the NY Times,  I.B.M.’s patent asset generates an estimated $1 billion a year in license revenue.

However the surprise mover in this list to me is Samsung Electronics which was granted a total of 5081 patents in 2012, second only to IBM. Compare this with Apple’s patents in 2012 numbering 1236, and it shows how much the Korean giant is focusing on research and development to stay relevant in the tech space and in competition.

Also the billion dollar loss earlier this year to Apple on a patent suite would have fired the Koreans up even more.

However this moment now, belongs to IBM. Being number 1 for 20 consecutive years can never be easy.

Kudos. The Big Blue.

Source: ificlaims.com

Predictive Analytics go a step further- Presenting Entity Analytics

IBM has just launched a new class of analytic software.

Entity Analytics is not just about people. It is designed to identify relationships and entities for everything from data centers to supply chains 

To quote from IBM’s press release:

“The software represents a new class of Decision Management capabilities that revolutionizes the way organizations gain, share and take action based on information gathered as part of business processes such as marketing, claims processing and fraud detection. In these, and other data-rich areas – where anywhere from a thousand to five billion decisions are made daily – the software will put forward the next best action to front-line employees ensuring optimal interactions and outcomes.”


Facebook buys 750 patents from IBM

Who would have though that IBM, that old technology warhorse would be approached by Facebook, the uber cool kid on the block to acquire some technology patents ?

Well it just happened. Facebook has apparently bought 750 patents from IBM for an undisclosed amount thereby “adding intellectual property that may help it counter allegations of patent infringement.” 

All set for its IPO and in its “Quiet Period” , Facebook has already been hit by a lawsuit from Yahoo over  a potential patent on technology used in its news feed. It is also ranked No. 28 on the list of companies most frequently targeted in patent cases last year, with 22 suits, according to LegalMetric.com.

This can only mean that Facebook is adding to its war chest of ammunition to fight legal hurdles surrounding intellectual property, so that it’s more prepared from an organizational point of view.

And who better to turn to but IBM - an organization which continues to add to its patent trove, receiving 6,180 new patents last year. The company has topped the list of U.S. patent recipients for 19 straight years.

As IBM continues in its efforts to get more social, I wonder what else went into this deal beyond financials?