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IBM uses AI to serve up Wimbledon highlights

Watson's at it again helping to create two-minute highlights of matches during tennis' biggest and oldest tournament.

Terry Collins Staff Reporter, CNET News
Terry writes about social networking giants and legal issues in Silicon Valley for CNET News. He joined CNET News from the Associated Press, where he spent the six years covering major breaking news in the San Francisco Bay Area. Before the AP, Terry worked at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and the Kansas City Star. Terry's a native of Chicago.
Terry Collins
2 min read
Day One: The Championships - Wimbledon 2017

Will defending Wimbledon men's champion Andy Murray be able to repeat? IBM will be tracking all of his action.

Getty Images

Too busy to spend hours watching Wimbledon champ Andy Murray try to win back-to-back titles against the likes of past winners Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic? IBM thinks it can help within a matter of minutes. 

Using its ubiquitous Watson artificial intelligence platform, the tech giant's research and iX teams are now curating the biggest sights and sounds from matches to create "Cognitive Highlights," which will be seen on Wimbledon's digital channels. 

ibm-cognitive-highlights-dashboard

An example of one of IBM's Cognitive Highlights dashboards.

IBM

The AI platform will literally take key points from the tennis matches (like a player serving an ace at 100 mph), fans' cheers and social media content to help create up to two-minute videos. The two-week tourney at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, complete with a Google Doodle to celebrate Wimbledon's 140th anniversary, began Monday.   

IBM's new Wimbledon highlights package comes about three months after experimenting with the system during The Masters, one of golf's biggest tournaments. Using AI, highlights featuring golfer Sergio Garcia's dramatic win were created from video, audio, and text and sent to a team of producers who quickly edited and added the pieces to an interactive dashboard.

At Wimbledon, the process will save editors and producers precious time sorting through clips, said John Smith, a multimedia manager at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center.

"With golf, there's a lot of action happening at different holes and similarly in tennis, there's so much play going on beyond Centre Court." he said. "We want the fans to see tennis in a unique way."

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