IBM Edge is under way in Las Vegas, with Big Blue expected to make a number of announcements and product releases.
CBR has compiled a list of the talking points so far:
1. Watson in refineries
The company’s supercomputer Watson has been put to work on a number of different tasks – from unique food recipes to working with analysts and business consultants across multiple industries.
The most recent example is working to manage leaks in refineries through its collaboration with Arria. Robert Dale, CTO, Arria, said: "You can lose a billion dollars through leaks. It’s bad for revenues, it’s bad for the environment, it’s bad for the security."
The system will be able to analyse data from sensors in order to predict where leaks are most likely to happen, which can then lead to pre-emptive maintenance.
2. Watson in healthcare
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The supercomputer has been put to work in the past to help develop personalised care for cancer patients. This initiative will now be expanded, with the company adding another 14 U.S treatment centres.
Watson analyses the DNA footprint of a tumour, searches its memory banks and tries to figure out what is driving the mutation. The supercomputer can then suggest what treatment will be most beneficial. This is based upon its knowledge of medicine and treatments that are currently available.
3. Watson in finance
The world of finance is an area that is rich for analytic use, with Watson being utilised in the comparison of investment offerings. "The applicability of the technology is unlimited, anywhere where large amounts of information exist, the technology can be applied," said Mike Rhodin, SVP, IBM Watson.
The system can be used to help financial organisations figure out which accounts are likely to be paid, how collections can be more efficient and predict the impact on revenue and profit if they lose customers.
Genesys is one company in the financial services area which is already implementing Watson to assist with customer and business needs.
4. Watson in therapy
Teaming up with a therapy startup called Talkspace, Watson is helping people to find the best therapist or counselling specialist through analysis of an online database.
Talkspace allows users to send anonymous messages through an app to a therapist, with Watson helping users to find the best fit. This will be done through the Personality Insights API which breaks down and analyses text generated by users to make decisions.
5. Bluemix
It wasn’t all about Watson at Edge 2015, with the company also speaking about Bluemix and stating that it is the largest cloud foundry around.
According to the company it is attracting 8,000 developers a week and now has over 100 services.
To add to this, Bluemix has rolled out an API MAnagement system which makes it easier to deploy and share large scale applications for analytics.
Additional modular features have been added to help build location-based apps for its MobileFirst Platform while other tools such as .NET Runtime and .Net Buildpack have been made publicly available.
