koolkao

What exactly does IBM mean by "cognitive computing"?

IBM's video ads are everywhere on the net. They seem to promise AI that replaces oncologists, musicians, chefs, etc.

What can IBM do that other tech companies can't?

Novice here. Trying to setup websocket communications between an Android app and node.js on the server side.

The problem I have is the lack of consensus on the Internets on which packages to use.

On node.js

- socket.io, often said to be stuck in the v0.9 version

- engine.io

- Autobahn

.. and more

On Android there are

- https://github.com/koush/android-websockets

- https://github.com/Gottox/socket.io-java-client

- Autobahn

Does HN have a favorite? What's HN's experience on mobile app use of websocket?

From my limited experience with the tutorials, I'm a big fan of FireBase. I wish I could use their framework and their service. Unfortunately since I'm in the healthcare space, it's a much higher burden to justify, in terms of business and in terms of regulatory compliance, entrusting so much protected information to an outside entity.

Are there alternatives similar to FireBase that we could host on our own servers?

At a gross level, the problem is simple: schedule an army of staff for one-person-per-day coverage, at any given day the staff is split into 3 pools, each staff has a vacation requirement, each staff has at most 2 shifts per week, etc.

I'd hate to do this manually as it has been done at my organization for centuries. I'd love to do something cool like genetic algorithms (eg http://www.sersc.org/journals/IJAST/vol14/1.pdf).

What has everyone here found useful? Open source / free alternatives are a big plus. This also sounds like an optimization problem, can I fire up C++, R, etc to plug into some optimization library for this?