Cognitive Technology

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What Does Cognitive Technology Mean?

Cognitive technology is a field of computer science that mimics functions of the human brain through various means, including natural language processing, data mining and pattern recognition. It is expected to have a drastic effect on the way that humans interact with technology in coming years, particularly in the fields of automation, machine learning and information technology.

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Techopedia Explains Cognitive Technology

Cognitive technology is a subset of the broader field of artificial intelligence, which itself could be considered a subset of biomimetics. Although artificial intelligence has been the subject of research for a very long time, cognitive technology evolved mostly out of the internet (particularly the web and the cloud).

One notable innovation that has become emblematic of cognitive technology is IBM’s Watson supercomputer, which has a processing rate of 80 teraflops that it uses to essentially “think” as well as (or better than) a human brain. Cognitive technology has also been applied in the business sector, perhaps most famously with the streaming media service Netflix, which uses it to generate user recommendations (a function that has largely contributed to the company’s success).

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.