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I'll take 'Jeopardy' on Hulu for $400, Alex
Jeopardy has been a mainstay of the TV landscape for 35 years, but you wouldn't know it if you didn't have conventional TV service. Thankfully, it's joining the modern era -- Hulu has announced that it's the first streaming service to carry the legendary quiz show. You won't find the entire back catalog (would you really want to marathon several thousand episodes?), but you will see "curated" collections that highlight some of the better-known moments. You'll find at least some of Ken Jennings' epic-length run, for example, as well as the performances of record-setting money maker Brad Rutter.
Humans had a good run: Watson to debut on Jeopardy tonight
Today, tomorrow, and the 16th are the fateful days: IBM's Watson supercomputer will go head to head with Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings in this silly, human-devised game we call Jeopardy. It promises to be some kickass TV, at the very least, and a historic event if Watson can prevail over his fleshy competition. The two matches, which are being spread over the three days, were pre-taped, so Ken, Brad, Alex and Watson already know the outcome, but they've done a pretty good job of keeping the secret so far. Hopefully they can keep mum until 7pm-ish this evening (check your local listings for a specific time). Need something to keep you occupied until then? Check out the great Esquire feature on Ken Jennings at the More Coverage link below. Oh, and don't miss our coverage of last month's preview match.
IBM's Watson supercomputer will play Jeopardy! on these dates
What are February 14th, 15th, and 16th? We've known it was going to happen for a while, but now we know when to set our DVRs. A rack of servers -- soaked with natural-language processing, armed with a battalion of esoteric pop culture knowledge, and "represented by a round avatar" -- will face off against Jeopardy! millionaires Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter (both profiled in video after the break) for three days starting on Valentine's Day 2011. We're also hearing that Watson will sign autographs after it's done decimating its opponents. It will then donate all its winnings to charity and spend the rest of its natural life dodging paparazzi on an undisclosed beach in the South Pacific. [Photo from Ben Sisto's flickr]
