Watson APIs and what these tools can give your service or application

With the advent of application programming interface or, in short, API, the life of programmers has become somewhat easier than before. In the minimum amount of 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 is now opened by many developers.

In 2013, IBM opened three Watson cognitive system APIs as part of “The Watson Ecosystem” - an ecosystem that at that time included more than 40 different technologies. Thanks to these APIs, developers were able to integrate features offered by IBM Watson into their own applications and services. Now there are more than three APIs opened by IBM, and the services themselves have become more functional. In the sequel - a description of the existing APIs of various services that a developer can access.

Now they are divided into several groups in accordance with the main capabilities and scope of use.

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.

Alchemy language


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

In addition, the service will help you catch the moment of the appearance 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 .

Conversion


Watson Conversation helps the 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” that can communicate with people. As part of the service, developers are provided with a visual dialog editor, thanks to which the developer can establish a communication channel with his visitors. No special programming skills are required here.

Access the API here , details 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 the API here , details here .

Language Translator

Translates content of different types into different languages. It can work in real time. This service is convenient in that it can be used to create an application that any user from any corner of the world can work with. 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 just establishing a dialogue with customers and users from different countries.


The service is self-learning. So if a mistake 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 the API here , details 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 like today”, “Is it hot today”, “Will it be possible to go to the sea” have to do with weather and temperature. Accordingly, the developed bot will be able to "understand" what the user asks for and give a relevant answer.

Access the API here , details here .

Natural Language Understanding

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

Access the API here , details 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 according to the content written and how the message or document is compiled. In order for the service to work correctly, it is recommended to download texts containing at least 1200 words.

Access the API here , details here .

Retrieve and rank

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

Access the API here , details here .

Tone analyzer

The IBM Watson Tone Analyzer service uses linguistic analysis to determine the tone of a message. It helps to immediately appreciate 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, the pages of a social network with reviews about the company's products or services. You can also work with him when communicating with customers.

Access the API here , details 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 decrypt the audio messages of clients, translating them into a text document, and also analyze the overall tone of calls using the services indicated above. Of course, this is only one of the ways, in fact, there are many more.

Access the API here , details here .

Text to Speech

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

Access the API here , details here .

Image Processing Group

There is only one service in this group:

Visual Recognition


The service allows you to “explain” to the machine what is shown in the picture. He recognizes food, dishes, faces of people with a determination of their approximate age and gender, looking for similar images. You can also create your own custom templates. Such a service can be useful to retailers and representatives of many other areas.

Access the API here , details here .

Group "Work with data"

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

AlchemyData News

This service indexes 250 to 300 thousand English-language news every day. A news story search is available in the last two months. Keyword search in progress. Thus, you can embed the service API in your application and offer it to users who need structured news on various topics.

Access the API here , details here .

Discovery


Structuring data from analyzed news with highlighting the main content. The service works mainly with English. Every day, this service analyzes more than 300 thousand news items 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, determining the frequency of mentioning of various names and performing other actions with the data.

Access the API here , details here .

Discovery News

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

Access to the API here, details here .

How to work with all these tools?

In order 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 by entering data and setting up the environment. This will help the master;
3. Find the necessary service that you need. In fact, Bluemix offers a lot more services than mentioned above. Getting started with them is very simple;
4. Create an instance. To do this, select the Watson service and then click the Create button;
5. Get the necessary data to embed in your application.
6. Create your own service or application.

Now Watson API is used by thousands of partners of the company, including the largest corporations, such as the Japanese company Softbank, and independent developers. Assess the capabilities of the IBM Watson cognitive system for free.