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Internet & Technology What's next for Watson?

Internet & Technology

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This has been the week of Watson and now what? It's odd that major news sources with the exception of Public Broadcasting in the US did not seem to be prepared for welcoming a new 'thinking' member of the universe. Nova ran a good special and clearly was prepared.

An expedition searching the Himalayas for a new species would have gotten some hot early press. Certainly we get some coverage of new planets circling distant stars, but Watson had a ho-hum early warning. To be sure the Jeopardy producers tried.

So what now? There is talk of unleashing a new Watson on the medical field. Medicine could be aided greatly by Watson's power. Watson is great at could it be situations. How many other areas can be looked at? Here are a few:

Big corporations have moved into an area called Product Lifecycle Management. This is the A to Z of the life of a product including engineering and manufacturing data in server farms. A new Boeing jet is really a giant glob of data. A Watson like clone could do wonders in this field. Report generations and information is now in the query format for these big systems. Could Watson help to spot early things like bad parts made by Toyota?
Watson combined with an Alpha Mathematica type system could be a real aid to engineers in all sorts of projects. (Look at 'A new way to see' )
Current research projects depend on knowing what's been done in the past. Search engines do a good job, but Watson could do better by helping to predict what path should be taken next by examining the depth of inquiry into dead ends or predicting better paths to take.
How about the weather? Gigantic models exist for the weather. What gets missed? Can Watson improve on the models predictive ability or our ability to observe?
Can specialized Watsons help in Education as tutors?
Could multiple Watsons improve each other by working together?
Watson proved to be very adept at decision making presented with vast amounts of possible decisions. Could a Watson assist in possible courses of action in a political or foreign relations crisis?