EmTech: IBM Tries to Make Watson Smarter

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IBMs senior vice president says Watson could find success with commercial apps in wealth management, call centers, and medicine.

Michael Rhodin speaks with MIT Technology Reviews editor in chief Jason Pontin yesterday at EmTech.

Three years after its artificial-intelligence engine Watson made its high-profile win on Jeopardy!, IBM is adapting the technology as it seeks practical commercial uses, an IBM executive explained yesterday at EmTech, a conference organized by MIT Technology Review.

The original version of Watson was built around a question-and-answer format optimized for the game show, but that turned out to be just the first building block in an emerging artificial-intelligence system, said Mike Rhodin, senior vice president of the IBM Watson Group.

Rhodin said IBM is refining Watson to make it more adept at providing the correct answer to a specific question in a specific domainfor example, by learning from previous queries. Just as [computer operating system] platforms emerged in the 1960s, we are seeing the beginnings of that kind of a system emerge in the information age, he said.

In the past year, despite skepticism in some quarters, the company has announced it was making more investments in the Watson platform (see Facing Doubters, IBM Expands Plans for Watson). It has also opened the platform to app developers (see Trained on Jeopardy!, Watson Is Headed for Your Pocket).

Some results of that strategy are now emerging. In one recent competition run by IBM, a startup called Majestyk came up with an app that added Watson functionality to a stuffed animal so that it could converse with a child and give feedback to educatorspotentially revealing whether the child might have learning disabilities.

We never would have thought of it; we dont have that DNA, he said. It validated the idea that we needed to open up the platform and make it available to the startup marketplace.

Ultimately, Rhodin said, IBM will pursue a revenue-sharing model for any effort that reaches market.

The company also continues to pursue applications in the medical, financial, and legal sectors. Using Watson to examine thousands of documents could, for example, help doctors see different diagnoses in order of probability and rule out things they didnt think of, Rhodin said.

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EmTech: IBM Tries to Make Watson Smarter

UNH Undergrad Seeks To Produce First Genetically Decaffeinated Tea Plant

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Genetic engineering of plants has come a long way in recent years. It was first used to make more robust crops, then more nutritious and efficient crops. Now, scientists at the University of New Hampshire are tweaking tea plants to create an un-caffeinated variety.

Camellia sinensis is the plant from which virtually all caffeinated teas derive. UNH neuroscience major Laura Van Beaver has been working to flip one particular gene like a switch, which changes the plant in a significant way.

then it essentially isnt functional because its in the wrong direction. And it will stop the biosynthetic pathway of the production of caffeine.

RL: And in laymans terms that means

That caffeine wont be produced.

You heard right. Genetically decaffeinated tea. The process was first demonstrated in Japan on coffee. Van Beaver is essentially following the same procedure. Shes isolated the gene and the school lab already has a means of introducing it to a tea plant.

Yea, lets see the gun. The gene gun.

Professor Subhash Minocha shows me a metal box about the size of a waste basket connected by a tube to a tall air tank. The target is a petri dish of plant cells.

"Tea is the most widely drunk beverage on earth."

Minocha loads the gene gun with a tiny dab of gene-carrying plasmids mixed into some very fine gold dust. When it fires, the gold particles spray down onto the cells in the petri dish.

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UNH Undergrad Seeks To Produce First Genetically Decaffeinated Tea Plant

Science Inc. Acquires Mobile Ad Network PlayHaven From Upsight

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Science Inc. just announced that it has acquired mobile ad network PlayHaven from mobile analytics and marketing company Upsight.

Science CEO Mike Jones (pictured above) told me that the PlayHaven team will join Science, merge with its Chirp Ads unit and, under the firms startup studio model, become an independently operating company based in San Francisco. (In fact, it will be LA-headquartered Sciences first major presence in the Bay Area.)

While Jones said he expects PlayHaven to show great returns and great growth on its own, he also thinks other Science companies can use it to make monetize their mobile apps. To reinforce his his claim that PlayHaven offers a best of breed platform, he pointed to its behavioral targeting capabilities.

The ad network apparently includes 18,000 games (including the crazy popular Kim Kardashian game) with 245 million monthly active users.

Previously an independent startup, PlayHaven merged with Kontagent at the end of last year, with the combined company eventually rebranding as Upsight. CEO Andy Yang told me that selling off the ad network kills two birds with one stone it allows Upsight to focus on its analytics and monetization platform, and it also allows that platform to remain neutral as it works with a variety of different ad networks.

Yang added that the sale was has been part of the companys plans since the merger: The PlayHaven ad network was not part of our long-term vision.

The financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed.

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Science Inc. Acquires Mobile Ad Network PlayHaven From Upsight

Science & Research Roundup: Sept. 24, 2014

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Appearances deceiving in salt marsh recovery

Once-depleted salt marshes in Cape Cod may be growing green and tall now, but that does not mean they are protecting the land from erosion, according to a new study by University researchers.

These results concern ecologists because the metric of a recovered habitat should not be Does it look like a recovered habitat? but Does it restore the ecosystem services? said Mark Bertness, professor of biology and senior author of the study, in a University press release.

Bertness worked with two former students to measure a wide array of Cape Cod salt marshes abilities to protect the land behind them. They set up chalk posts and noted how much the chalk waned after waves passed through the salt marshes in order to model the erosion of the land behind the marshes. They next compared the results to the biomass and height of the marsh grass in front of the area.

The results, published in the journal Biological Conservation, indicate that the marshes protection ability has increased more sluggishly than plant mass and height in these areas, which has implications for how conservationists should approach protecting Cape Cods shores, according to the release.

We need to prevent the die-off or understand the recovery enough to do management conservation tasks, such as fertilization, that would enhance the recovery, Bertness said in the release.

Private intensive care unit rooms forinfants boost health, study suggests

Though many hospitals boast intensive care units with lines of beds facing the center, a new study led by University researchers suggests that private family rooms in neonatal intensive care units may have a positive impact on the health of the babies leaving the hospital.

Infants hosted in private rooms generally needed fewer medical procedures, displaying increased attention as well as less lethargy and less pain, the researchers wrote. Additionally, underweight babies leaving the hospital from private rooms tended to be heavier and showed more rapid weight gain than those in communal rooms.

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Science & Research Roundup: Sept. 24, 2014

US Military Band Performs in Lviv: Concert held as Ukraine hosts NATO military drills – Video

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US Military Band Performs in Lviv: Concert held as Ukraine hosts NATO military drills
A US military ensemble has given a special two-hour concert in Lviv. The band called the "US Armed Forces in Europe" performed various popular hits from across three decades - including songs...

By: UKRAINE TODAY

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US Military Band Performs in Lviv: Concert held as Ukraine hosts NATO military drills - Video

NATO's outgoing chief says 'we cut fat, built muscle,' but leaves long to-do list

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BRUSSELS When Anders Fogh Rasmussen took over at NATO, the alliance was struggling to contain a growing insurgency in Afghanistan, and some predicted it would soon follow its Cold War foe, the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, into the dustbin of history.

Five years later, as Rasmussen wraps up his tenure as the 12th secretary general in NATO's history, the U.S., Canada and their European allies are again squaring off against the Russians, and must confront a more diverse and bewildering array of threats to Western security than ever.

"We should be prepared to address all of them, whether it is a conventional threat against our territory, or what I would call hybrid warfare as we have seen in Ukraine a sophisticated Russian mix of conventional military operations and information and disinformation campaigns or terrorism as we see it in Iraq, or cyber-attacks or missile attacks," Rasmussen told The Associated Press in a farewell interview.

"All this is part of today's security environment and NATO must stand ready to protect our societies and our populations against all those threats," said Rasmussen.

The 61-year-old Dane's last day as the U.S.-led defense alliance's top civilian official is Sept. 30. In one of his last official acts, he was scheduled to deliver a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday.

On Rasmussen's watch, NATO continued to wage what has been the longest and most extensive military operation in its 65-year history in Afghanistan, a campaign that is supposed to come to an end this December.

"Rasmussen played a valuable role in helping convince NATO members to contribute additional forces to President Barack Obama's surge strategy," said Jorge Benitez, senior fellow for trans-Atlantic security at the Washington, D.C.-based Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. "This was a major accomplishment because the momentum had been for allies to decrease their commitments in Afghanistan."

Rasmussen, a former center-right prime minister of Denmark, was also in charge when NATO provided air cover to the rebel militias that brought down Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi.

An important lesson he drew from that conflict and the ensuing chaos, Rasmussen told AP, was that the international community must get involved faster when a repressive regime is overthrown, in order to improve the chances for a desirable and stable outcome.

Earlier this year, when Russian's military occupied and annexed Crimea, then began what the Western governments called a "stealth invasion" of eastern Ukraine, Rasmussen loudly and repeatedly voiced his outrage and worked hard in public and behind the scenes to help forge trans-Atlantic unity and an effective and credible military response.

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NATO's outgoing chief says 'we cut fat, built muscle,' but leaves long to-do list

NATO's outgoing chief: 'We cut fat, built muscle" – NBC40.net

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By JOHN-THOR DAHLBURG Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) - When Anders Fogh Rasmussen took over at NATO, the alliance was struggling to contain a growing insurgency in Afghanistan, and some predicted it would soon follow its Cold War foe, the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, into the dustbin of history.

Five years later, as Rasmussen wraps up his tenure as the 12th secretary general in NATO's history, the U.S., Canada and their European allies are again squaring off against the Russians, and must confront a more diverse and bewildering array of threats to Western security than ever.

"We should be prepared to address all of them, whether it is a conventional threat against our territory, or what I would call hybrid warfare as we have seen in Ukraine - a sophisticated Russian mix of conventional military operations and information and disinformation campaigns - or terrorism as we see it in Iraq, or cyber-attacks or missile attacks," Rasmussen told The Associated Press in a farewell interview.

"All this is part of today's security environment and NATO must stand ready to protect our societies and our populations against all those threats," said Rasmussen.

The 61-year-old Dane's last day as the U.S.-led defense alliance's top civilian official is Sept. 30. In one of his last official acts, he was scheduled to deliver a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday.

On Rasmussen's watch, NATO continued to wage what has been the longest and most extensive military operation in its 65-year history in Afghanistan, a campaign that is supposed to come to an end this December.

"Rasmussen played a valuable role in helping convince NATO members to contribute additional forces to President Barack Obama's surge strategy," said Jorge Benitez, senior fellow for trans-Atlantic security at the Washington, D.C.-based Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. "This was a major accomplishment because the momentum had been for allies to decrease their commitments in Afghanistan."

Rasmussen, a former center-right prime minister of Denmark, was also in charge when NATO provided air cover to the rebel militias that brought down Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi.

An important lesson he drew from that conflict and the ensuing chaos, Rasmussen told AP, was that the international community must get involved faster when a repressive regime is overthrown, in order to improve the chances for a desirable and stable outcome.

The rest is here:

NATO's outgoing chief: 'We cut fat, built muscle" - NBC40.net