IBM deploys its   natural speech  computer,  Watson, to  fuel   new Wimbledon mobile apps
June 17 2016: The qualifying rounds of this year's Wimbledon tennis begin on Monday  and the championship games will be played from June 27 to July 10.  Organisers, the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) have   entrusted   IBM  -- for the 25th year running -- with providing the technology to fuel the  conduct of the games.
This year,  for the first time,   IBM is deploying its  question answering cloud computer,  "Watson"  to  provide  fans and viewers,  with  an enhanced interactive experience , in the stands or right in their homes.
The main vehicle to deliver this  will be   a  new  Android and iOS app which  will provide multi-content personalized feeds for fans at home and on the move. For visitors on site, the new apps   will enable personalized messaging, and the opportunity to create their own Wimbledon Story and share their unforgettable Wimbledon experiences with  others.  The app will be available shortly  at http://www.wimbledon.com.  Look under "news".
To make all this happen,  in the way that will appeal to millions, IBM has set up a Cognitive Command Centre backed by its Watson supercomputing cloud.  The solution will ingest feeds across multiple social media channels to automatically understand, reason and learn the most relevant and emerging topics of conversation as they relate to Wimbledon , as well as other major sporting events, providing those insights to the digital editorial team.
Says Mick Desmond , Commercial & Media Director at the AELTC:  "IBM's technology innovations are key to maintaining our prominence in the collective mind of our global fan base. With help from IBM, we are providing new on-site features in the Smartphone apps allowing fans to plan their trip to The Championships in advance and share their moments on the day. In the home we are also taking the best and most relevant real time content, and delivering it to fans in the form of an Apple TV app."
IBM typically captures 3.2 million data points from 19 courts across 13 days of the Wimbledon games. It transforms that data in near real time to provide insights to commentators and media helping to bring The Championships to life for TV fans globally. In under four seconds, the match insights IBM captures are also used to update millions of digital devices around the world.
________________________________________________________________
Tech Fact:  Watson is a  question  computer system capable of answering
questions posed in  a natural, conversational language, developed  by IBM in
2011.  Watson was named after IBM's first CEO, Thomas J. Watson.  
Watson had access to 200 million pages of content consuming four  terabytes
of storage and  including the full text of Wikipedia. IBM has made access to
Watson available to researchers and developers worldwide, many of them in India.
__________________________________________________________________
 Digital volleys:  Tech  to  enhance tennis viewing
The tennis at Wimbledon 2016  will harness these technologies:
Real-time content delivery:  Providing real time insights around breaking match records faster than anyone else. This summer there will be even more context than ever before, with leader boards of all-time greats and alerts in advance of newsworthy milestones being hit.
Hill vs. World vs. Queue:  Questions are posed to those on The Hill via the large screen on the Hill, to those in the Queue, and to "the world" via Wimbledon's social channels. The responses are analyzed and presented back to both communities.If you can't attend, you can get a sense of connection with those who can.
SlamTracker: Find it in the   mobile Web,  Wimbledon.com. This allows fans to go beyond scores to analyze real time and historical player, match and tournament data. Additionally, SlamTracker enables fans to share insights on their social media accounts with the push of a button.