Watson 2.0 Desktop & Search Assistant Alternative to Google Sidebar
CNet’s Elinor Mills reports that Watson 2.0, an AI based “context-sensitive” desktop search tool, is about to launch as an application which will be seen as an alternative to Google’s Desktop Search and Sidebar. Like Google Sidebar, the Watson 2.0 sifts through web history data, feeds from blogs and news sites visited, and desktop documents to serve relevant desktop search and web news information in real time – faster than Google Sidebar.
Best of all, Watson 2.0’s parent company Intellext says their offering is more secure than Google’s. Unlike Google Sidebar, Watson 2.0 does have a price tag but also offers a free 7 day trial, which I’m not sure is long enough for users to get hooked.
Weirdly enough, if you want to add Watson 2.0 to your Windows Desktop Search, MS and Intellext are offering a Watson 2.0 free 30 day trial “add-in” at http://addins.msn.com. Guess Intellext figures Windows Desktop users pinch more pennies than those who would just like to download Watson 2.0 directly from the source.
“Nothing gets sent to our servers,” as with Google’s Sidebar service, said Al Wasserberger, chief executive of Intellext. Sidebar users only get the customized news and other feeds if they opt in to sending information to Google servers about what documents and Web pages are being viewed.
“Watson 2.0 uses an artificial intelligence approach to understand what you are working on and formulate queries,” he said. “It sends the queries to the online (information) sources and compares the results against the document you are working on and then sorts (the results) according to relevance.”
