![watson.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmUKVgqZKPLZiPDSYDM2HVVLeaoF1WwTNLktejgac4HvaB/watson.jpg)

In my last technology post, I briefly talked about how you can leverage machine learning to build cognitive apps, which start out as machine learning models that are then embedded as REST APIs into applications with a user interface (UI) created using Javascript (for web apps) or Objective C and Swift (for mobile apps). In case you would like to create a desktop app instead, you will most likely use Java to create the UI for your application. Moreover, I identified this type of application as a “cognitive app” because it would essentially use the machine learning model in its back-end to make predictions on new, incoming data. However, if we consider the word “cognitive” to denote some use of artificial intelligence – voicing input instead of typing it into the app, hearing the app before viewing the results displayed in the UI or invoking natural language processing to analyze unstructured data – then we can’t create a truly cognitive application using machine learning alone. For this purpose, we must call on IBM Watson.

# What is Watson?

![IBMwatson.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdZJAhziZGFf5Gu68FWgi9WKyoi2rEtEUkQ8pHE87uaEc/IBMwatson.jpg)

IBM Watson is IBM’s flagship cognitive computing technology that can perform a whole host of functions needed to add a cognitive layer to your application. It can converse with the user like a virtual agent or chat bot, provide a search and content analytics engine, convert unstructured data into structured form, translate text from one language to another, perform natural language classification, perform natural language processing to uncover meta-data such as concepts, entities and emotions, derive personality insights from textual and social media data, provide a machine learning-based search capability, transcribe speech to text, create natural-sounding speech from text, use linguistic analysis to stratify the tone of your text and even uncover the meaning in visual content. 

And if you didn’t already know, IBM Watson actually came on an episode of *Jeopardy* in 2011 to handily defeat the two greatest champions in *Jeopardy* history – Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

![watson_on_jeopardy.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmf4NisQghHCuQUQR4nwvuHG7fvUdTtsMkCf36cPifcaYx/watson_on_jeopardy.jpg)

While it is all fine and dandy that Watson is amazing and can do just about anything cognitive, I’m sure the question you are all thinking of right now is: **How can we leverage IBM Watson to make our apps more cognitive?** Is there a single Watson software that we can download from an IBM site? Do we need to sign up for another 30-day trial? Basically, how can someone outside of IBM use Watson to build a cognitive app?

Luckily, IBM Watson has been condensed into a collection of 12 APIs that are all available on IBM Bluemix. If you have already signed up for a 30-day trial to Bluemix, you should be able to use any of these Watson APIs in order to add cognitive capabilities to your applications. These are all REST APIs so you should be able to embed them into web or mobile apps. 

Here are all the Watson APIs available on Bluemix:

# Conversation

![Conversation.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmWh9cYjEb1s9gE9uS2ogZHtTHv7wjA3wDMvvaLCchrooX/Conversation.png)

# Discovery

![Discovery.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmU4EvhQBq9ut5xpRR1f2zQQStixYN7rsHns1GpLL9dzZ5/Discovery.png)

# Document Conversion

![Document Conversion.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPJZEz8RkeAoBBw8g5HnqnyxFcvvuWGHuNTSuqAbQLRhp/Document%20Conversion.png)

# Language Translator

![Language Translator.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmNN4TXVCijdhgfAiWvJm774bDQKB7hSrihQkWnaww2MLV/Language%20Translator.png)

# Natural Language Classifier

![NLC.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmeRfHdiXxnsJrySVyvwHNGdxhNWmWC1XTP7ZLR4ZnmXYD/NLC.png)

# Natural Language Understanding

![NLU.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmR1SKYvDdthmXgSaCeg9pYvhjJfBNvymJUGSjhXncHFN6/NLU.png)

# Personality Insights

![Personality Insights.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmTYEhMtqruTPJ5z7ddGGCeDMhMs14fwCeVeLR9S1KeNH7/Personality%20Insights.png)

# Retrieve and Rank

![Retrieve and Rank.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmQwcL6JjccZSTzUB3jE3YsdqPTkE6D2E5zPxCeTozBFfU/Retrieve%20and%20Rank.png)

# Speech to Text

![Speech to Text.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmY5MBtRTdJXoAgJMqsZBQvgxRPiL5vXes1XyQEWPbBiZQ/Speech%20to%20Text.png)

# Text to Speech

![Text to Speech.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmUAtHXTSw4xg6YqF1uzwbX38S8YSfLHjGWFxRewSnENKH/Text%20to%20Speech.png)

# Tone Analyzer

![Tone Analyzer.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRodKGqNATANc4WnjJhqSdVDPCWQvMdhc1w9j1RceF1hb/Tone%20Analyzer.png)

# Visual Recognition

![Visual Recognition.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmefn8o1VpUbzTSvzQyXD9Snf7HqtbxdReNLWTeV7S6hd4/Visual%20Recognition.png)

So there you have it – IBM Watson represented as a series of APIs that you can readily use in all of your applications. Moreover, you can actually use more than one Watson API in a single app. For example, you can use the Watson Conversation API to communicate with the user and display specific information in the UI based on certain voice commands, capture voice input and transcribe it to text using the Speech to Text API, convert textual input to natural-sounding speech using the Text to Speech API and use the Personality Insights and Tone Analyzer APIs to analyze incoming Twitter data in order to return personality and tone information for each tweet. Believe it or not, I actually used the aforementioned Watson APIs to create a behavioral health application known as Cognitive Health, which I will demonstrate to you all in a future post.

Stay tuned to my next technology post in which I will perform a video demonstration of a machine learning app that I created for clinical medicine, which is called Virtual Doc.

Let me know if you have any specific questions about IBM Watson or about using any of the Watson APIs to build your cognitive application. I have also included the link to IBM Bluemix once again, in case you still need to sign up and start building your very own models and apps.

**IBM Bluemix – A Platform for Application Development**: https://console.bluemix.net

**Image Sources:**
1) http://fortune.com/2016/10/17/ibm-watson-belongs-to-ibm/
2) http://www.jenunderwood.com/2017/03/28/ibm-watson-cognitive-computing/
3) http://watson2016.com/
4) Screenshots of each Watson API taken from https://console.bluemix.net/catalog/?category=watson&taxonomyNavigation=services&env_id=ibm:yp:us-south

**Until next time, keep acing life!**

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