The API from Watson and what these tools can give to your service or application

With the advent of the application programming interface or, briefly, the API, the life of programmers has become somewhat easier than before. In minimum time, you can now add to your application certain functions, structures, procedures provided by another application, operating system, or service. The API of their services and applications are now being opened by many developers.

In 2013, IBM opened three Watson cognitive systems APIs at once within the framework of The Watson Ecosystem, an ecosystem that at the time included more than 40 different technologies. Thanks to these APIs, developers were able to integrate the capabilities offered by IBM Watson into their own applications and services. Now open by the IBM API is much more than three, and the services themselves have become more functional. In the sequel - a description of the existing API of various services that can be accessed by the developer.

Now they are divided into several groups in accordance with the basic capabilities and scope of use.
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Group "Language"

This group includes seven different services with open APIs:
• AlchemyLanguage;
• Conversation;
• Document Conversion;
• Language Translator;
• Natural Language Classifier;
• Natural Language Understanding;
• Personality Insights;
• Retrieve and Rank;
• Tone Analyzer.

AlchemyLanguage


This includes a whole set of APIs that allow you to teach your application or service to “understand” feelings, keywords and phrases, high-level abstractions, and more. This service can be used to analyze the general mood of the buyers of a particular product. What do Twitter followers or Facebook friends think of your product or service? This is important information that will improve interaction with your target audience.

In addition, the service will help to catch the moment of the emergence of new competitors or analyze the actions of old ones. The service also analyzes the content on the company's website and evaluates it according to various criteria.

Access the API here . Additional information is available at this link .

Conversation


Watson Conversation helps a developer create a bot or virtual assistant in the form of an application for a mobile device, web service, or even a robot in the flesh, able to communicate with people. As part of the service, developers are provided with a visual dialog editor, thanks to which the developer can adjust the channel of communication with his visitors. No special programming skills are required here.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .

Document Conversion

This service allows you to convert various document formats to the format used by one of the Watson services. Document Conversion is an auxiliary service that is used along with other features of the cognitive system.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .

Language Translator

Translates content of different types into different languages. Can work in real time. This service is convenient because with its help you can create an application with which any user from any corner of the world can work. That is, a company, for example, from Russia, will be able to offer its products to a buyer from Japan. But the possibilities of this service are much wider than simply establishing a dialogue with customers and users from different countries.


Service self-learning. So if an error was made somewhere and corrected, then this error will no longer appear. In addition, the service “remembers” specific product names, names of people and terms so that the translation is as correct as possible.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .


Natural language classifier


This service classifies content according to its subject. For example, it allows you to “explain” to a computer that questions like “What is the weather today,” “Is it hot today,” “Will it be possible to go to the sea” are related to weather and temperature. Accordingly, the developed bot can "understand" what the user asks and give a relevant answer.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .

Natural Language Understanding

Analysis and extraction of meta-data from such type of content as terms, keywords, categories, description of feelings, emotions, relationships, semantic roles. This service can work with unstructured text.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .


Personality insights

This service allows you to evaluate some aspects of the personality of the author of a certain text (for example, a business message). The analysis is conducted on the content written and how the message or document is composed. In order for the service to work correctly, it is recommended to download texts containing at least 1200 words.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .

Retrieve and rank

Using this service, a developer can extract the most relevant information from a group of documents. For example, having applied Retrieve and Rank, a developer can quickly find a solution to a problem with any equipment by analyzing the instructions for this equipment. With it, you can improve the work of the call center, when an employee using the service quickly finds a solution to a given question. As a result, the time to search for an answer is reduced, and the client receives more complete information on his question.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .

Tone Analyzer

The IBM Watson Tone Analyzer service uses linguistic analysis to determine the tone of a message. It helps to immediately assess the emotional component of the content in order to quickly navigate how to respond. The service can also be used to analyze social media - for example, a social network page with reviews of products or services of a company. You can also work with him when communicating with clients.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .

Rech Group

This includes services such as
• Speech to Text;
• Text to Speech.

Speech to Text


This service is used, as you can already understand by name, to translate speech into text. Thus, it is possible to decipher clients' audio messages, translating them into a text document, as well as analyze the general tone of calls using the services mentioned above. Of course, this is just one of the ways, in fact there are many more.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .

Text to Speech

Well, this service converts printed text to speech using various voices, key and languages. Thus, the developer can customize the pronunciation of the bot any words for closer communication with the audience. As an example of the use of the service, one can cite the development of an interactive toy, the creation of an automatic call center, a navigation system with a talking virtual assistant.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .

Group "Image Processing"

There is only one service in this group:

Visual recognition


The service allows you to "explain" the car that is shown in the picture. He recognizes food, dishes, faces of people with the definition of their approximate age and sex, looking for similar images. You can also create your own custom templates. This service can be useful for retailers and representatives of many other areas.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .

Group “Working with data”

And this group includes services that allow for a detailed analysis of the data of any complex documents of various subjects:
• AlchemyData News;
• Discovery;
• Discovery News.

AlchemyData News

This service indexes from 250 to 300 thousand English-language news every day. Search for news stories is available in the last two months. Searching for keywords. Thus, you can embed the service API into your application and offer it to users who need structured news on various topics.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .

Discovery


Structuring data from the analyzed news highlighting the main content. The service works mainly with English. Every day this service analyzes more than 300 thousand news notes and blog entries from 100,000 sources. The service allows you to search and analyze feedback on a particular product or service in the information received, determine the frequency of mentioning various names and perform other actions with the data.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .

Discovery News

This service provides access to a set of data collected as a result of analyzing hundreds of thousands of new articles and blog entries on various topics. The number of sources reaches 100,000.

Access to the API here , detailed information here .

How to work with all these tools?

To get started with IBM Watson and its services, you must perform the following steps:

1. Get a free account on the Bluemix platform. The first month of working with this platform is free;
2. Set up an account, specifying data and setting the environment. This will help the master;
3. Find the necessary service that you need. In fact, Bluemix offers much more services than the above. Getting started with them is easy;
4. Create an instance. To do this, select the Watson service and then click the Create button;
5. Get the necessary data for embedding in your application.
6. Create your own service or application.

Now Watson API is used by thousands of partners of the company, among them both the largest corporations, like the Japanese company Softbank, and independent developers. You can evaluate the capabilities of the IBM Watson cognitive system for free.