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| The Unified Inbox booth at IBM Connect. |
Known as the UnificationEngine, the messaging platform is to date the only technology compatible with over 20 international messaging platforms and protocols including legacy channels of email and SMS; social media channels such as Twitter, Weibo, and Facebook; and messaging apps and chatbots from Line, WhatsApp, Viber, Skype and others. IBM Watson powers the natural language and conversational intelligence of UIB’s UnificationEngine platform, which makes it possible for users to communicate with their appliances.
“Bringing together IoT with artificial intelligence (AI) and unified messaging, we have created the world’s first UnificationEngine. UnificationEngine is a device- and platform-agnostic middleware that enables products and software to simply communicate with people and things,” said Toby Ruckert, Founder and CEO, Unified Inbox.
For example, users can chat with their coffee makers on WhatsApp or Viber. When requesting a cappuccino, the appliance can ask via the UnificationEngine how strong you want it, and with how much sugar and milk. The coffee maker can then alert the user on WhatsApp or other channels to once the coffee is ready.
Beyond consumer appliances, the UnificationEngine can also be used in smart enterprise use cases such as messaging commuters waiting for a bus. In a smart city scenario, it can be used to message city officials on crowd movements and formations.
Bosch, which announced that it is collaborating with IBM for industrial IoT on February 17, making available Bosch IoT Suite services on open standards-based IBM Bluemix and the IBM Watson IoT Platform for clients to efficiently update large numbers of IoT devices, has started to integrate the UnificationEngine into its surveillance cameras. Bosch surveillance cameras are ‘smart at the edge’, where intelligent video analysis takes place within the camera, while Unified Inbox provides the messaging platform for people to interact with to connected things. With the two technologies combined, users are able to communicate with their surveillance cameras in a natural and intuitive manner via text to receive real-time information such as human traffic statistics.
Ruckert said, “UnificationEngine enables this communication seamlessly, with the significant benefit of eliminating the need for an app. UnificationEngine can help companies to succeed in the rapidly expanding new markets of IoT and AI. The IBM Watson Conversation Service makes this capability possible, performing virtual personal assistance across a wide variety of use cases and powering the cognitive conversations within UnificationEngine.”
With an estimated 20.8 billion connected things in use by 2020 according to Gartner, IoT is driving the growth of new ecosystems and collaboration between small startups and large enterprises that are seeking to create innovative customer services and business models.
Said Jason Jameson, Director, Watson Internet of Things, Asia Pacific: “IoT has the potential to create real business value and transform industries. From connected cars to smart homes, to wearables, security, emergency services, health and safety to consumer services, the industry is primed to disrupt long-standing business models by infusing intelligence into devices and connecting them to virtually everything from refrigerators, televisions and coffee machines to manufacturing equipment, aircraft engines and implantable medical devices.”
Watson APIs are available on the IBM Cloud (Bluemix). Since its launch in 2014, Bluemix has grown to become one of the largest open, public cloud deployments in the world. Based on open standards, it features more than 150 tools and services spanning categories of cognitive intelligence such as Blockchain, security, IoT, DevOps and more.
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