Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Meet Watson, Your Doctor in a Pizza-Size Box

Posted: 12 Feb 2013 05:45 PM PST

In 2011, IBM's super-computer "Watson" trounced human components at Jeopardy.

The original Watson system consisted of 90 IBM Power 750 servers taking up 10 full racks. That works out to 2,880 CPU cores and 15TB of RAM. Watson now fits in a pizza box.

Extreme Tech reports IBM makes Watson the size of a pizza box, starts offering cloud access to doctors.

When the robot uprising is finally underway, you might look back on the year 2011 as the beginning of the end. That was the year IBM's Watson supercomputer trounced its squishy human opponents on the quiz show Jeopardy. Watson is finally being utilized in the real world, and this might be just the beginning.

IBM has entered into an arrangement with Memorial Sloan-Kettering and WellPoint to bring Watson's expertise to the medical field. Doctors will be able to run the variables through Watson to get suggestions on possible treatments based on giant blocks of medical data.

The Watson-capable servers being deployed to hospitals and data centers will only take up one slot in a standard server rack. Does that mean that it's slower? Certainly not — Watson's theoretical processing speed has been bumped up 240% since its television debut.

The key to the slimmed down Watson rig is improved processing algorithms, but also domain specialization. On Jeopardy, Watson had to be able to scan huge amounts of data and spit out an answer in under a second. Health care decisions don't have to be made instantly — Watson can churn through the medical data for a few seconds before anyone starts getting impatient. The field of study is also much more narrow.

WellPoint points out that doctors miss early stage lung cancer diagnoses about half the time. Watson, on the other hand, is able to get the right diagnosis on these same cases 90% of the time. Although, Watson will still hedge its bets: When a medical professional consults the system, they will receive results on an iPad or computer in about 30 seconds with possible courses of action sorted by confidence level.

If Watson proves to be a success, more consumer-facing applications could be coming down the road. IBM is working with Nuance Communications to develop the system, and Nuance has plenty of consumer products (such as the voice-recognition part of Siri).

So in the not too distant future, you might have a computer to thank for your health. It's certainly a lot more useful than winning game shows.

Elementary My Dear Watson

Price-deflationary? You bet!

"Watson" is no longer the blundering sidekick but rather more like Holmes with a reported 90% cancer diagnosis success rate, certainly a price-deflationary phenomenon.

This man has been dead for at least two hours says Sherlock Holmes. How would anyone know? "Elementary My Dear Watson ....".

Was the computer misnamed?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Common Plans, Coordinated Lies, and G7 Currency Statements

Posted: 12 Feb 2013 11:10 AM PST

Inquiring minds are investigating an amusing set of lies from the G7. At the top of the list is Group of 7 Will Let Market Decide Currency Values.

Seven major developed countries including the United States and Germany pledged on Tuesday to let foreign exchange markets determine the value of their currencies. In a statement, the G-7 powers said they would consult closely to avoid moves that could hurt stability. But they restated a commitment to market-determined exchange rates

"We reaffirm that our fiscal and monetary policies have been and will remain oriented towards meeting our respective domestic objectives using domestic instruments, and that we will not target exchange rates," the G-7 said in the statement, which was posted on the Web site of the Bank of England.

On Monday, Pierre Moscovici, the French finance minister, said he wanted the Europeans to present a common plan later this week during a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers of the Group of 20 nations to be held in Moscow.

But the head of the German Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann, said Monday that the French initiative was a poor substitute for policy overhauls that, if implemented, would do more for growth.

On Tuesday in Brussels, following a regular monthly meeting of E.U. finance ministers, Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, said there was "no foreign exchange problem in Europe" and that such issues should be discussed at the G-20 meeting in Moscow.

Close Coordination of Lies

There is no close coordination, except in self-serving lies. Japan is doing what it wants and that is targeting the both the Yen and the Nikkei.

The government of Japan is not open to suggestions from anyone, not even its own central bank head who resigned before his term expired. That resignation allows the government to appoint someone willing to follow the prime minister Shinzo Abe's wish to devalue the Yen.

On Saturday, Japan's Economic Minister Promoted a Surge 17% in the Nikkei to 13,000 by March and a Contender for Bank of Japan announced support for more easing.

Lovely. Label that direct intervention however you want, but it sure as hell has noting to do with "market forces".

Common Idiocy

French finance minister, said he wanted the Europeans to present a common plan. Common plans have nothing to do with market forces either.

Of course, all these rounds of QE in the US are blatant manipulation as well.

The central bankers hide behind statements that their policies are for other goals, and that those policies just so happen to weaken the currency.

Does it matter "why" if the end result is the same? Heck, do they even believe the nonsense they are spouting?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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