Computer to race humans to drive deepest spikes on Jeopardy! railroad

Cory Doctorow 1:27 pm Tue Dec 14, 2010

IBM has evidently designed a computer system optimized for winning Jeopardy! and have arranged for it to duel John Henry or a reasonable facimile on TV:

Two of the venerable game show's most successful champions — Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter — will play two games against "Watson," a computer program developed by IBM's artificial intelligence team. The matches will be spread over three days that will air Feb. 14-16, the game show said on Tuesday.

'Jeopardy!' to pit humans against IBM machine

(via /.)

(Image: John Henry Statue, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from redarrow101's photostream)

A satellite has been jamming GPS over Europe

For years, GPS receivers scattered across Europe — from Svalbard to Spain — kept registering the same brief, total signal blackout at the exact same instant, in bursts of three… READ THE REST
The YouTube channel with 77,000 videos of red and blue rectangles

In early 2014, internet sleuths found a YouTube channel called Webdriver Torso that had uploaded more than 77,000 videos. Each was 11 seconds long and identical in form: a series… READ THE REST
New solar-power desalination device leaves no brine

University of Rochester researchers have built a solar-powered desalination device that doesn't leave behind brine — the concentrated saltwater that conventional plants dump back into the ocean, where it raises… READ THE REST
Save time on crafting prompts with your expert AI assistant, Prompting Systems at just $48 for life

Disclosure: Boing Boing earns a commission on purchases made through links in this post. TL;DR: Make your ideas come to life faster with a lifetime subscription to the Prompting Systems Silver Plan,… READ THE REST
ChatGPT Plus is $20/month—ChatOn packs in GPT, Claude & Gemini for 5 years for just $90.99

Disclosure: Boing Boing earns a commission on purchases made through links in this post. TL;DR: ChatOn bundles GPT, Claude, Gemini, Sonar, image generation, web search, and more into one app for $90.90… READ THE REST
Replace doomscrolling with smartscrolling—Headway lifetime subscriptions now just $70

Disclosure: Boing Boing earns a commission on purchases made through links in this post. TL;DR: Learn in your free time with a Headway lifetime subscription, now $69.99 (reg. $299.95). Books are long… READ THE REST