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IBM’s Watson Analytics platform is now open to everyone

ibm.com

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Re: IBM’s Watson Analytics platform is now open to everyone

#11

Post by gesman »

I signed up and tried to upload data and Watson blew up on me with errors:

DB2 SQL Error: SQLCODE=-964, SQLSTATE=57011, SQLERRMC=null, DRIVER=4.16.53

Apparently it's very sensitive to data input formats and essentially it wants you to do the data babysitting work first by properly preparing and structuring the data before it'll do anything.

These are cool demos on "friendly" pre-baked spreadsheets but way early for any practical production deployments, until IBM will start supporting raw datasets.

Re: IBM’s Watson Analytics platform is now open to everyone

#13

Post by Napoleon1963 »

I find the "Stories" section at the bottom to be particularly distasteful.

As far as I can tell, they've just taken stock photographs, labeled them with plausible names, and made them seem like testimonials without actually being real testimonials.

I don't expect marketing efforts to always be completely honest, but these "stories" seem like a really condescending sham to me.

I wouldn't mind it if they discussed how this technology could benefit certain business roles, but to attach fake (as far as I can tell; please let me know if I'm wrong!) personae to these stories comes off as deceitful to me.

Marketers, please, stick with actual testimonials very verifiable people, or don't even bother!

Re: IBM’s Watson Analytics platform is now open to everyone

#14

Post by mark_l_watson »

gesman wrote: post #11

I signed up and tried to upload data and Watson blew up on me with errors: DB2 SQL Error: SQLCODE=-964, SQLSTATE=57011, SQLERRMC=null, DRIVER=4.16.53 Apparently it's very sensitive to data input formats and essentially it wants you to do the data babysitting work first by properly preparing and structuring the data before it'll do anything. These are cool demos on "friendly" pre-baked spreadsheets but way early for a…

I have been using IBM Watson, and it is also sensitive to clean input data.

I think that both IBM and Microsoft are doing a good job at "reinventing themselves", BTW.

edit: by 'clean' I really meant data that is in a regular structure with good example questions specified for each paragraph in input documents.

Re: IBM’s Watson Analytics platform is now open to everyone

#15

Post by gesman »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #14
gesman wrote: post #11

I signed up and tried to upload data and Watson blew up on me with errors: DB2 SQL Error: SQLCODE=-964, SQLSTATE=57011, SQLERRMC=null, DRIVER=4.16.53 Apparently it's very sensitive to data input formats and essentially it wants you to do the data babysitting work first by properly preparing and structuring the data before it'll do anything. These are cool demos on "friendly" pre-baked spreadsheets but way early for a…

I have been using IBM Watson, and it is also sensitive to clean input data. I think that both IBM and Microsoft are doing a good job at "reinventing themselves", BTW. edit: by 'clean' I really meant data that is in a regular structure with good example questions specified for each paragraph in input documents.

The world need more serious analytical tools.

I driving an effort for a major bank to combine all sources of different data (traffic logs and external treat intelligence feeds - all of different formats) to create a comprehensive fraud alerting and security investigation system. And we got pretty impressive results utilizing Splunk as a data swiss army knife.

IBM is certainly capable of offering a competitive solution to this industry although they need to move faster.

WatsonAnalytics is a good start even at it's current "teaser preview" stage.

Re: IBM’s Watson Analytics platform is now open to everyone

#17

Post by michaellosee »

gesman wrote: post #11

I signed up and tried to upload data and Watson blew up on me with errors: DB2 SQL Error: SQLCODE=-964, SQLSTATE=57011, SQLERRMC=null, DRIVER=4.16.53 Apparently it's very sensitive to data input formats and essentially it wants you to do the data babysitting work first by properly preparing and structuring the data before it'll do anything. These are cool demos on "friendly" pre-baked spreadsheets but way early for a…

It seems that error code may not involve data input format but rather indicates DB2 is out of resources[1].

Honestly this release might be a little early for IBM as well. Any sort of verbose error message is at least a low risk information disclosure finding on a pentest and a verbose database error message is a strong indicator the application is vulnerable to SQL injection. Even if not vulnerable, it's blood in the water and should be fixed before hitting production.

[1]http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSATW2_7.3.0/c...

Re: IBM’s Watson Analytics platform is now open to everyone

#18

Post by ha292 »

This Watson Analytics effort is flawed. It has a very limited market. It takes massive investment to run. Very few people will ever try it. They will also get very questionable benefits.

Bottom line, it is hard to see IBM getting anything close to a positive return from it.

Judging by how IBM has gone on to destroy itself in the last few years, I predict that this will be another nail on their coffin.

We won't be talking about Watson Analytics past Summer of 2015. Of course they will have 1000 people still working on it.

Re: IBM’s Watson Analytics platform is now open to everyone

#19

Post by larrymcp »

Napoleon1963 wrote: post #13

I find the "Stories" section at the bottom to be particularly distasteful. As far as I can tell, they've just taken stock photographs, labeled them with plausible names, and made them seem like testimonials without actually being real testimonials. I don't expect marketing efforts to always be completely honest, but these "stories" seem like a really condescending sham to me. I wouldn't mind it if they discussed how…

Haha, yeah when I saw the stock photos of the Tina Fey lookalike and the hipster bearded IT manager, I said "okay, um this part of the site doesn't appear to be targeted at me".
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