Blog: IBM Computer Gets a Buzz on for Charity Jeopardy!

IBM Computer Gets a Buzz on for Charity Jeopardy!
Associated Press (01/13/11) Jim Fitzgerald

IBM's Watson computer beat former Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a 15-question practice round in which the hardware and software system answered about half of the questions and got none of them wrong. Watson, which will compete in a charity event on Jeopardy! against Jennings and Rutter on Feb. 14-16, recently received a buzzer, the finishing touch to a system that represents a huge step in computing power. "Jeopardy! felt that in order for the game to be as fair as possible, just as a human has to physically hit a buzzer, the system also would have to do that," says IBM's Jennifer McTighe. Watson consists of 10 racks of IBM servers running the Linux operating system and has 15 terabytes of random-access memory. The system has access to the equivalent of 200 million pages of content, and can mimic the human ability to understand the nuances of human language, such as puns and riddles, and answer questions in natural language. The practice round was the first public demonstration of the computer system. IBM says Watson's technology could lead to systems that can quickly diagnose medical conditions and research legal cases, among other applications.

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