IBM has introduced new and expanded cognitive APIs for developers that the company claims “enhance Watson’s emotional and visual senses, further extending the capabilities of the industry’s largest and most diverse set of cognitive technologies and tools”.
Three APIs, Tone Analyzer, Emotion Analysis and Visual Recognition, are now available in beta. Additionally, Text to Speech (TTS) has been updated with new emotional capabilities and is being re-released as Expressive TTS for general availability.
These APIs are pushing the sensory boundaries of how humans and machines interact, and they are designed to improve how developers embed these technologies to create solutions that can think, perceive and empathize.
“We continue to advance the capabilities we offer developers on IBM’s Watson platform to help this community create dynamic AI infused apps and services,” said David Kenny, general manager of IBM Watson.
“We are also simplifying the platform, making it easier to build, teach and deploy the technology. Together, these efforts will enable Watson to be applied in many more ways to address societal challenges.”
IBM is also adding tooling capabilities and enhancing its SDKs (Node, Java, Python, and newly introduced iOS Swift and Unity) across the Watson portfolio and adding Application Starter Kits to make it easy and fast for developers to customize and build with Watson. All APIs are available through the IBM Watson Developer Cloud on Bluemix.
