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September 30, 2005
MSN Toolbar Features Watson Contextual information agent
Watson 2.0 is a new product by Intellext, a company founded by AI researcher Kristian Hammond and team at Northwestern University.
It is highly reminiscent of Purple Yogi, the original product of the company that now is Stratify (where several of my friends have worked). The idea is that the system watches everything you do on your desktop (preserving privacy!) and suggets information from desktop, corporate, and external sources that is likely to be of interest to your current context, based on understanding of the text you are working on and your history.
Here's the text from their website:
Intelligence in Context. This statement forges the foundation of Intellext, a visionary company that takes information retrieval out of the search box. We have a vision - that wherever you are, whatever you are doing - indeed whatever you are thinking - your computer should be bringing relevant information to you.Intellext is delivering on this vision with Watson, the company's flagship product that transcends the boundaries of contemporary search and information access. The product of research conducted by Intellext co-founders Dr. Jay Budzik and Dr. Kristian Hammond at Northwestern University, Watson removes the burden of search from the shoulders of computer users. By reading and understanding what people are working on and using that knowledge to proactively find and deliver useful information to the user, Watson is able to find information the user didn't know existed - in places they otherwise might not have looked.
While there have been several attempts at this in the past, this one might actually work. I haven't tried it yet, but the UI, services interface, and integration with search all look well designed and usable. In addition, Microsoft is now promoting this on their MSN Search Toolbar, which will give the product (and company) great visibility.
Here's an article about Watson on PC World.
Posted by barney at September 30, 2005 6:26 PM
This entry was posted in the following categories: Search
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