IBM Watson 2.0 Coming To Smartphones

IBM is bringing its Watson supercomputer technology to smartphones. The company has announced plans to create Watson 2.0 thanks in large part to recent advances in battery power and computing efficiency.

Watson 2.0 promises to bring the computers voice recognition to smartphones while adding image recognition into the mix.

Unlike Apple Siri techology, the Watson 2.0 system will target high-end corporate clients. IBM hopes to offer a system that can answer complex questions about finances, telecommunications, health care, and much more.

IBM has been busily testing the Watson program in the medical field, including the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. IBM however says the system won’t be ready for mass distribution for at least several years.

The biggest challenge for Watson will be scaling down its processing while scaling up software efficiency. To find answers to every question manageable, the Watson system current operates with the help of 10 IBM Power750 server racks. To put that number into comparison, it would equal 6,000 desktop computers and far more smartphone devices.

Watson does require a steep amount of time to develop a “learning curve” on the subjects it focuses on, and that fact combined with mobile processing restrictions mean IBM will need to develop various advances in hardware and software design to accomplish their goals. To reach its goal, IBM will combine various technologies it has developed recently including natural language processing and image recognition.

IBM recently announced that it would attempt to increase revenue from its business analytics to $16 billion by 2015. Watson could be the exact type of boost IBM has been hoping for but only if technology standards can catch up to IBM’s lofty goals in the near future.