Intellext has announced to launch Watson 2.0 on Friday. Recognised to work as a sidebar, Watson 2.0 is designed to artificially understand the content of the text that any Personal Computer (PC) user is reading or creating, and automatically offers relevant news articles, Word documents, and other Web- or PC-based information for the user. Unlike Google’s Desktop (Sidebar) service as databases were occasionally exchanging with Google servers, Watson 2.0 offers its service without compromising PC user’s privacy, as nothing gets sent to their servers.

Based on technology developed in Northwestern University, the context-sensitive search tool uses an Artificial Intelligence (AI) approach to understand users’ working attitudes on their PC and common query formulations that users would request from online web sites. Once Watson 2.0 gathers sufficient information to understand users’ requirement, it sends queries to the online (information) sources and sort out the results according to level of relevance.

Sidebar Users usually harness its customisability to read news, RSS feeds and other information. Like Google’s Desktop Search and Desktop Sidebar, the software look up data from different various sources on the computer, such as Word Documents, files, emails, spreadsheets and from web sites, including news, blogs and RSS feeds. In addition to these, Watson 2.0 offers relevant real-time information (sources), compared to Sidebar’s approach of learning user’s requirement over a period of time.

From the physical interface, Intellext designed Watson 2.0’s side-pane interface on the basis such that it does not squeeze all the information within a short column width. Information such as scratch pad, history view, weather and photos are considered redundant. On the other hand, when it searches result for users, it does take up quite a bit of space on the screen, depending on the amount of information it offers. Users are also allowed to customise the various information sources they want the engine to perform the search on.

Currently, Intellext is offering Watson at a monthly subscription for $9.95, or alternatively, $99.95 per annual subscription. Users may also feel free to download a free trial from the website.

A flash demonstration is readily available if you want to have a look on how it works.