When people speak of IBM Watson, they do so in hushed tones in the corner of rooms, whispering for fear it will jinx it and the promise will not be realized. ‘Did you hear? Watson will cure cancer.’ Watson is, in many ways, the Chuck Norris of cognitive computing. 

Watson’s reputation stems, in no small part, from IBM itself, who are not modest when it comes to blowing their own horn. Dr. John Kelly, who heads up the Watson team at IBM, has claimed that ‘This is brand new technology. It’s going to change the world.’ Not to be outdone, Ann Rubin, IBM's VP of branded content and global creative, said that Watson enables users to ‘outthink cancer, outthink risk, outthink doubt, outthink competitors.’ Big promises. But is this hype warranted, or, as some believe, is the emperor running amok completely naked? 

IBM established itself as a leader in the artificial intelligence field back in 1996 when its Deep Blue chess playing computer defeated Russian chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov. Then Watson’s Jeopardy victory in 2011 cemented its reputation. Shortly after the Jeopardy victory in 2014, IBM broke down Watson’s capabilities into 40 different components each serving a particular business problem, which is the business model it still uses today. 

IBM pitches Watson as a solution for a variety of industries, from healthcare to financial services. It crunches through vast amounts of data to understand problems and environments in the same way humans do, a process known as cognitive computing. It then uses these insights to provide predictions and make decisions. According to IBM, the business is growing. It is at the center of the company's ‘strategic imperatives’ - which include cloud, mobile and analytics - that contributed $32.8 billion in revenue in 2016. However, further details around the return on investment are scant, as it is lumped in with the other technologies in the company’s financial statements. In February last year, chief executive Ginni Rometty explained that it does not provide much information because Watson is new and growing, telling the annual IBM analyst meeting, ’We are building an era, a platform, an industry, and making a market with it. We have competitors who don’t disclose for a decade, [so] I’m going to protect it and nurture it — we will disclose eventually’. 

Rometty’s position is understandable, but evidence of success may at least help to counter the growing body of criticism. Among these critics is Meg Whitman, CEO of IBM competitor Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. Last year she noted that ‘We're in a lot of customers where actually from a Watson perspective it's not as far along in terms of real-world applications as you might imagine from the advertising.’ This could easily be dismissed as a competitor trying to get one over on a rival, but her’s is not a lone voice. Many others are starting to argue that Watson is just a thinly veiled advertising campaign, exploiting the notoriety achieved from its Jeopardy! win to promote its consultancy services and the technologies it has put under the Watson umbrella that are not especially groundbreaking. 

Also among the dissenters is Roger Schank Ph.D., founder of the Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University. He accuses Watson of false advertising, writing in an excoriating blog post that Watson is essentially just a ‘word counter’ little different from Google search. He says that it is incapable of any non-trivial reasoning, contrary to how IBM presents it in its advertising, noting specifically an ad campaign IBM ran that showed Watson’s analysis of Bob Dylan songs for key themes, which it identified as ‘love fades’ and ‘time passes’ - themes Schank argued no Dylan fan would ever put down as his most important. Although, Dylan says those themes sound ‘about right’ in the advert, so it could just be that Schank is misremembering. 
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IBM refutes accusations that it is not the high-end proposition it claims. Dr. Kelly says that ‘Everything we brand Watson analytics is very high-end AI,’ and you will find little argument that IBM’s Watson artificial intelligence system is an incredible piece of technology. It’s more than capable of searching across vast repositories of unstructured digital data and returning answers remarkably quickly and has done amazing things, particularly in healthcare and refining diagnoses. The problem is not whether it's a market leader, though, it’s the promises it is making. Watson has suffered from the goals it has set for itself, from curing cancer to being the solution to cybersecurity. These are important things to resolve, and IBM needs to be honest with how much Watson can really do. Overhyping AI is dangerous, as we saw when inflated expectations and subsequent disillusionment in the 1980s led to the so-called AI Winter, bringing investment to a grinding halt and pushing research ‘underground.’ Obviously, IBM wants to sell its product, and because it is such a nascent technology it needs big targets like cancer and cybersecurity to put itself on the map and gain customer support. However, in the long term, it could be shooting itself in the foot. The thaw has been hard earned, and although another setback of the same magnitude is unlikely for AI, expectations should still be managed.

Three years ago, Menash Michael stepped out of his Tel Aviv home to walk his dog. By the time he reached his driveway, he was lying unconscious on the ground. He’d fainted. Fortunately, his tumble was spotted by a next-door neighbor who called for an ambulance, and he was rushed to the nearest hospital.

Menash is a type 1 diabetic, meaning his pancreas doesn’t work properly and is unable to produce the insulin required to turn glucose into energy. He was diagnosed with the chronic condition almost 30 years ago, and since then has had to inject himself with artificial insulin four times a day. Every day.

It’s important that Menash gets the timing and doses of these injections precisely right. If he makes a mistake, the consequences could be fatal.

When your blood sugar level hits 50, you become confused. If it drops to 30, you faint and need an emergency glucose injection.

When he tumbled to the ground three years ago, his blood sugar level was just 23. “I was almost dead,” he said.

It turned out that Menash had accidentally given himself double the normal dose of insulin. This is a very easy mistake to make, albeit one with potentially serious consequences.

But although unpleasant, this episode got Menash thinking how he could irradicate the problem for others. Enter Insulog.

This device clips onto the end of any standard disposable insulin injection pen and automatically records whenever the user adjusts their insulin dose or injects themselves. This is then displayed prominently on the device’s LCD display, making it harder for someone to inadvertently double-dose themselves.
“The insulog has a multi-sensor system. When you turn the dial of the insulin pen or press the injection button, the sensors detect how many units you’re taking, and records it on the display,” Michael said. 
The device comes with a built-in battery, which lasts up to six days and can be recharged via MicroUSB. It also boasts Bluetooth connectivity allowing users to automatically synchronize their injection data with their iOS or Android smartphone, which can be later shared with their physician to help them manage their diabetes.
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The Insulog is being launched on IndieGoGo and backers can get their hands on a kit for as little as $109 with delivery promised in July, 2017.

The 2016 Rio Olympics are how history and there was no shortage of tech at this year's event. Athletes used all kinds of gadgets to help them train and stay fit, from heads-up displays used by cyclists to jump trackers worn by the volleyball team. Here are a few of the gadgets that made it to Rio.
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Smart Cycling Glasses

You may have seen U.S. cyclists wearing Solos smart glasses, a kind of Google Glass for athletes. The glasses have a tiny heads-up display that shows metrics like heart rate, pace, distance, and cadence. The data appears in real-time, so cyclists know if they are moving at their projected pace. The glasses have built-in headphones and can run for around six hours before needing a charge. The Solos glasses are expected to become available next Spring and should cost around $500.

Joint and Muscle Therapy

Athletes with the U.S. gymnastics team used LumiWave's Infrared Light Therapy device to treat minor muscle and joint pain. Each of its eight "pods" beams infrared light into body tissue, which helps increase blood flow and provide short-term pain relief. The device has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "for temporary relief of minor muscle pain and spasms and minor joint pain and stiffness." While gymnasts have access to it now, the device is on pre-order to the general public starting at $449.




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Jump Tracker

Wearables provide analytics data to help athletes train. The U.S. women's volleyball team used the Vert Wearable Jump Monitor, which clips onto clothing to track how high, how far and how often each player jumps. The data is sent to an app to help coaches ensure athletes don't over-exert themselves, which can lead to injury. It can also be used for basketball and other sports. You can buy your own for $125.

 


Visa's Payment Ring

​Crime was a big concern at the Rio Olympics. Visa provided a wearable payments ring to its sponsored athletes at the games, allowing them to make cashless payments. Tap the ring on a compatible payment terminal and you're done. Visa is also linking pre-paid cards to payment bands and smartwatches like the Swatch Bellamy.

Researchers at the Tufts University have developed a prototype called smart stitches that can close wounds and also send data to doctors indicating health status of tissue during the healing process. The prototype is described in a paper published in the journal Microsystems & Nanoengineering.

The sutures are made from a variety of different materials including cotton and synthetics and are dipped in physical and chemical sensing compounds that connect to a wireless electronic circuit. These unique nanosensors create a flexible platform that has currently been successfully sutured into tissue in rats as well as in vitro.

When in operation, the tiny sensors transmit several pieces of biometric data including the temperature around the wound, its pH balance and glucose levels to name but a few. It can also track how well the stitches are holding and whether there is too much pressure or strain on the wound. 

“The ability to suture a thread-based diagnostic device intimately in a tissue or organ environment in three dimensions adds a unique feature that is not available with other flexible diagnostic platforms,” said Sameer Sonkusale, Ph.D., Director of the interdisciplinary Nano Lab at Tufts. 

“We think thread-based devices could potentially be used as smart sutures for surgical implants, smart bandages to monitor wound healing, or integrated with textile or fabric as personalized health monitors and point-of-care diagnostics,” he said. 
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The smart sutures are still in the research stage, but the promising data collected so far indicates a positive future for biometric tracking in humans.