IBM's Watson supercomputer may one day fit in your pocket, if the company has its way.

Everyone’s favorite “Jeopardy!”-playing supercomputer, Watson, may one day fit in your pocket. IBM tells Bloomberg Businessweek that it is currently working to shrink the information powerhouse into the form of a smartphone and tablet. The company believes a mini Watson could provide ample benefits to businesses, from farmers to medical professionals, which would help IBM tap into new markets that could bring in an estimated $16 billion in revenue by 2015.

For example, a voice-enabled Watson smartphone could provide complex answers to help solve business problems, like where to launch a product, or when to plant crops. It could also be able to analyze a patient’s symptoms to help doctors more accurately diagnose an illness. It would be like Apple’s Siri on steroids — deeper, stronger, and more accurate.

Wanting to make a mini Watson — which IBM calls “Watson 2.0″ — and successfully clearing the technological hurdles to do so are two entirely different matters.

First is the problem of energy. According to IBM, Watson “is made up of a cluster of ninety IBM Power 750 servers (plus additional I/O, network and cluster controller nodes in 10 racks) with a total of 2880 POWER7 processor cores and 16 Terabytes of RAM. Each Power 750 server uses a 3.5 GHz POWER7 eight core processor, with four threads per core.” In other words, it takes a whole lot of energy to power Watson’s sophisticated DeepQA technology, which powers its question-answering abilities.

The next obstacle is fitting Watson 2.0 with voice and image recognition capabilities, which Watson currently does not possess. On top of that, IBM must make Watson more user-friendly by allowing it to understand natural language, in the way Siri (kind of) does.

Adding to IBM’s challenges is the fact that Watson must “learn” what the correct answers are for different situations. Machine-learning takes time, so making a Watson smartphone fully useful out of the box remains something IBM must solve before its Watson 2.0 vision can become a reality.

WIth an emphasis on a productivity-rich UI and its new database functionality, Tiggzi competes for app developers platform love.

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the app economy has uprooted how we think about the technology market. In a landscape formerly dominated by hardware titans and products that targeted the IT crowd and not the everyday consumer, the app has become not only a legitimate startup idea but the foundation of the hottest, fastest-growing industry — mobile. 

Which is why it stands to reason that there’s plenty of interest not only in developing apps but in developing tools for developing apps (say that three times fast). Apps are supposed to be inherently simple and enjoyable on the user-end — and now that’s being applied to the developer side of things as well. 

One startup attempting to infuse some ease and accessibility into this process is Tiggzi. Founded last year, the company falls under the umbrella of software engineering company Exadel, and it’s a cloud-based mobile app platform that relies on the simplest of the simplest actions for app creation: Drag and drop. 

“We started Tiggzi as a prototyping tool so that developers could create their UI,” says head of community and developer relations Max Katz. “We just realized, ‘Well we can’t go much further than just building the UI with that.’ So it grew from there.” 

With Tiggzi, you’re launched into a digital workshop where, to put this in the simplest terms possible, you drag and drop the elements you want over to the device image. You can use these functions to create iOS, Android, HTML 5, and Windows Phone apps. 

Of course, while the action itself is familiar and easy, don’t confuse Tiggzi with something you can pick up sans developer skills. “At the end of the day this is a development tool, and you’ll need to have Web development skills,” Katz says, adding that HTML, Javascript, and CSS proficiency are generally what you’ll find necessary to use Tiggzi. But these skills, combined with the action-orientation and immediacy of Tiggzi turn it into a great productivity tool for developers. 

The fact that Tiggzi is entirely cloud-based and runs in the browser with no download or install necessary is also part of its allure. 

New to Tiggzi is its database. The platform previously announced it would be adding some a backend and storage for developers’ Tiggzi-made apps. It also comes with plugins so that developers can auto plug pre-made functionalities into their apps — as an example, Katz showed me how a developer could pull and put in the AT&T sms messaging feature via the available plugin. 

“We started as just the builder, but the backend services make us a platform,” says Katz. “A lot of companies have the backend, but they don’t have the builder, but we have both. We can offer the entire stack.” 

Does the verdict in the Samsung vs Apple case mean that Google is next? We take a look at how Apple might proceed and why it wouldn't sue Google.

The win for Apple in the recent patent case in California is still sending out shockwaves across the tech community. We’ve seen lots of speculation and plenty of analysis on how Apple’s victory will affect you and what the verdict means for Android. The big loser is obviously Samsung, as a share slump wiped $12 billion off its value on Monday and that’s the last thing it wants after being ordered to pay over $1 billion in damages to Apple.

We’ve discussed the inevitable patent battle between Google and Apple before. Now that Apple has been emboldened by the Samsung win, it will continue to pursue patent infringement claims. Does this mean that Android is really at risk? Will Apple target the platform and Google directly or continue to go after the device manufacturers?

Google’s statement

Following the verdict in the Apple vs. Samsung trial, Google released an interesting statement.

“The court of appeals will review both infringement and the validity of the patent claims. Most of these don’t relate to the core Android operating system, and several are being re-examined by the US Patent Office. The mobile industry is moving fast and all players — including newcomers — are building upon ideas that have been around for decades. We work with our partners to give consumers innovative and affordable products, and we don’t want anything to limit that.”

So challenges to the validity of Apple’s patents could have an impact, but how long will that take? The vast majority of the Samsung case doesn’t relate to the Android platform, but “pinch to zoom,” “double tap to zoom,” and universal search are all areas that could lead to more court cases. If one jury has ruled in Apple’s favor on these patents then there’s every chance that another one will. It’s vital that these patents are re-examined.

Google isn’t about to sit idly by and wait for that process though. Instead it will continue to support Android manufacturers against Apple and bring its own patent infringement cases through Motorola.

Why wouldn’t Apple sue Google?

The question a lot of people have been asking is whether Apple will now go ahead and sue Google. The truth is that suing Google over Android could prove to be tough, compared to suing Android device manufacturers. There are quite a few compelling reasons not to sue.

Google doesn’t charge a licensing fee for Android and it makes money indirectly from the platform mainly through advertising, but also through apps and media in Google Play. When Google has gotten involved in hardware, it has generally been very careful to avoid copying Apple. The Verge did a nice job explaining how Google has made efforts with its branded Android devices, and with the software, to avoid infringing on Apple’s patents.

All of Google’s hardware looks significantly different from the iPhone and iPad lines. The Nexus S is the only Google-branded device to have been included in the recent case. The Android platform has gradually dropped features that look similar to iOS and Google has found new ways to achieve the same functions. We can expect Google to continue to make platform tweaks if it feels there is a great risk of impending legal action.

The other Android manufacturers are a much easier target. If Samsung can be beat, then what about companies that don’t have such deep pockets or patent portfolios of their own? Apple can pursue HTC, LG, Amazon, and others. HTC is having a tough time lately so it seems an obvious target and has already been targeted by Apple in the past. Last year Apple sued Amazon over the ‘App Store’ name. Will it sue over the Android platform?

What about Apple vs. Motorola?

When Google bought Motorola Mobility, it was widely assumed to be largely about acquiring patents. However, the strength of the portfolio lies in standard-essential patents. These are supposed to be patents that must be licensed on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, sometimes called FRAND patents, because everyone has to use them.

Now, as this Reuters article points out, standard-essential patents have not been doing well in U.S. courts. Samsung and Motorola have both failed to get the decisions they wanted against Apple based on these kinds of patents. That doesn’t really bode well for any future Motorola vs. Apple cases, at least in the United States. It’s worth remembering that international courts often see things differently.

Add all these potential targets together and it seems like Apple has enough to keep its lawyers busy without going for Google.

Do Google and Apple need each other?

It’s also worth remembering that, despite the fact Apple seems to be stripping away dependence on Google where it can – the two companies still collaborate on many fronts. Google is still the default search engine and Apple’s iOS platform provides plenty of traffic. Many Google services are popular with iOS users. If Apple is serious about providing the best user experience then it can’t afford to ditch Google right now.

Never let a dispute get in the way of profits. That’s a lesson that you don’t need to teach Samsung. The South Korean company’s courtroom loss will not stop it from selling components to Apple for the next iPhone and iPad releases. If Apple doesn’t stand to make a significant gain from going for Google directly then it won’t.

What about negative press?

A lot of people have been calling Apple a bully in the patent wars. There is a danger that continuing to pursue patent infringement lawsuits over everything will turn consumers off. Apple cares about its public perception, especially if there’s any chance that it could affect profits. When loyal customers complained about Apple ditching EPEAT certification for its devices, the company reversed the decision and re-affirmed a commitment to environmentally friendly products.

On the other hand, many Apple fans seem to feel the patent infringement cases are justified. Perhaps the outcry is from the other side of the divide, from people who wouldn’t buy Apple products anyway. Are there any Apple fans out there who will forgo the new iPhone in protest at the patent war?