Fresh from its smarty-pants ”“ make that smartest-pants ”“ victory on TV”™s “Jeopardy!”, Watson is about to meet the broader world. The instruction book is in the form of educational boot camps, free of charge.
IBM rolled out its “global goals initiative” March 10 to capitalize on arguably the flashiest software and technology debut ever ”“ the much-hyped man vs. machine “IBM Jeopardy! Challenge.” The initiative”™s goal, as IBM sees it is “to educate clients, business partners and college students how to use IBM business analytics and information management software, and many of the underlying technologies of the Watson computing system to capture information from new sources and use it to create business opportunities.”
As with John Henry (victim of the steam driver) and Paul Bunyan (the chainsaw) before them, the human contestants on the quiz show met their matches in technology, this time called Watson. Futurists have got something to chew over now that a computer is finally acting like the ones on “Star Trek”: Ask it a question using common language and it responds with the correct answer.
Watson is 14 years ”“ light years in computing ”“ beyond Deep Blue, the IBM computer and software that beat Garry Kasparov in a six-game chess tournament in 1997.
Making sense of what IBM terms “Big Data” requires a new set of skills that many IT professionals do not possess today, according to the company. “The skills initiative provides IT professionals no-charge access to 1,200 on-site skills boot camps at client, partner and university locations worldwide, at 38 IBM Innovation Centers and online at DB2University.com.”
IBM is operating in accord with Poughkeepsie-based Marist College to make practical the ethereal potential of Watson. The goal is to reduce carbon use. Said IBM: “According to Roger Norton, dean of the School of Computer Science and Mathematics, Watson demonstrated a new standard for an energy-efficient computing system that today”™s companies can use to become more green. Big Data presents a new challenge for industry and academia to rethink the way they see IT. Marist is expanding on its initiatives working with IBM to offer more courses in DB2, BigInsights and analytics software to improve the utilization of data centers and analyze untapped data generated from sources such as Facebook and sensors.”
IBM”™s website has more information on Big Data training under: “Watson boot camp.”
