This week I went to the chiropractor. Next week I'll go to the dentist and the barber. No, I'm not getting ready for Valentine's yet, it's just the usual Lotusphere #ls11 prep. I am, however, going to have an awesome date for Valentine's as I'm taking my wife up to New York to celebrate our 7th year anniversary. But you don't need to save the date for that.
You do, however, need to save the date for this. As you may remember, last year I took my first trip to the IBM Watson facilities. I included a video that talked about how IBM is preparing to go on Jeopardy! and compete against humans for the first time. Well, we now have a date. The $1 million competition will air on February 14, 15 and 16. Make sure you set your TiVo's.
IBM's computer will go against 2 humans: Ken Jennings who broke the Jeopardy! record for the most consecutive games played by winning 74 games in a row during the 2004-2005 season, resulting in winnings of more than $2.5 million. The second human is Brad Rutter who won the highest cumulative amount ever by a single Jeopardy! player, earning $3,255,102.
Yesterday, Jeopardy! held a practice run and Watson beat the Ken and Brad! You can take a peek at a clip from the practice run here (check out how Watson makes the audience laugh!!):
Taping for the show begins TODAY. The success of Watson (and news that Google search results are not as good as they used to be) makes me wonder: could this be the next great search engine in the making? The IBM team already does have some plans for Watson whether or not he wins on Valentine's Day.
To learn more about Watson, go to http://www.ibmwatson.com