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Google Assistant's latest games are built for your smart display
Google Assistant gets a handful of new games to play on smart displays.
‘Jeopardy!’ fans can now answer trivia questions while they drive
Jeopardy! fans can now test their knowledge while they drive. To celebrate the 36th season of Jeopardy!, which premieres tonight on CBS, Sony has partnered with Drivetime. Starting today, fans can answer trivia questions from seasons 1-35 through the in-car Drivetime app. Like other games on the app, Jeopardy! will be voice-based and hands-free.
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.
Amazon Prime members won’t have to pay for ‘premium’ Alexa skills
Amazon's latest perk for Prime subscribers? "Free" access to some premium Alexa skills. It's starting small, with Prime members getting access to an additional six Double Jeopardy! clues within the Jeopardy! skill. If you aren't ponying up for Prime, but are smitten with the game, those half-dozen hints will run you $1.99 a month, and you can subscribe to them directly within the skill itself.
Amazon Echo users can start playing this classic trivia game
Amazon Echo is already pretty darn useful, but its latest update adds a fun trivia game you're definitely familiar with: Jeopardy!. After installing its app's newest version, you can start playing by issuing its voice assistant a command: "Alexa, start Jeopardy!" Just like the show, it will draw questions from different categories, including sports, pop culture, travel and world history, to test your ability to recall trivial bits of information. And just like in the show, you'd have to answer in the form of a question. Besides adding the game, the update also gives you the power to skip audiobook chapters on Audible via voice command for days you'd rather listen than play.
Sony Pictures TV launches sports trivia mobile game, Sports Jeopardy
Hot on the heels of its first original mobile IP, Sony Pictures TV launched another mobile game last week, Sports Jeopardy. The sports trivia game uses Jeopardy's branding and quiz show style to challenge players with thousands of sports-related questions. It is available now on iOS and Android via Google Play and the Amazon App Store. Sports Jeopardy includes a leaderboard-enabled leveling system with challenges and achievements as well as turn-based online and local multiplayer modes. To spice up the traditional Jeopardy formula, the game also features power-ups like Time Out to add more time to the clock for answers and Double Down, which provides another Daily Double bonus on a tile on the board. The game is 99 cents with the option of additional in-game purchases, and also uses in-game coins for unlockable jerseys, podiums and avatar accessories. [Image: Sony Pictures TV]
Cleveland Clinic and IBM team up to make Watson a Doctor (video)
Medical research facility Cleveland Clinic and IBM are teaming up to develop ways to let supercomputer Watson become a useful tool for doctors. The machine's ability to analyze language and scour its database for answers is hoped to offer quicker and more exhaustive diagnoses for patients. As modern medical students spend less time memorizing diseases, they're focusing on learning how to think critically and navigate the huge amount of available data. Big Blue is also hoping that the Jeopardy champion will learn how to digest a person's medical records in order to match up their history with maladies. We're just nervous that someone will give Watson a telepresence robot and send him out onto the wards -- you'd be worried about his bedside manner if you've seen his ruthless quizzing manner.
Test your trivia and linguistic acumen with Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune demos
It's a Daily Double and you're betting it all. Ready?Answer: Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.Clock is ticking, genius. What's it going to be?Question: What are today's demos on Xbox Live?Queue applause. If that one doesn't do it for you, let's give the other game a try. This puzzle is from the "Game demos on Xbox Live today" category:WH( )( )L OF FO( )TU( )( ) A( )D J( )OPA( )DYGot it? Good job. Now try this one:A( )( )HOLEThat's right – "Armhole." Congrats! Now download THQ's take on Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy demos on Xbox Live to give the real games a whirl. They're also up on PSN.
IBM's Watson takes Harvard, MIT business students to school, drops the mic
There was a massacre in Boston the other night, and Watson had blood all over his hands. The IBM supercomputer and undisputed Jeopardy champ made a virtual appearance in Beantown this week, ostensibly as part of a symposium on the ways in which advanced analytics could reshape business. In reality, though, he only showed up to remind everyone that he's really smart. During the event, Watson squared off in a Jeopardy scrimmage against two groups of students from some of the most prestigious business schools in the world -- Harvard Business School, and MIT's Sloan School of Management. The brainiac b-schoolers (including two former Jeopardy contestants) did remarkably well for the first two rounds; Harvard managed to get within $1,800 of the machine going into Final Jeopardy, and even held the lead at one point, following a gutsy Daily Double (MIT didn't fare so well, but hey, we're all human, right?). The wheels came off, however, once the battle entered Act III, when Watson pulled away for the win. Both the computer and Team Harvard answered the final question correctly, but Watson wisely bet just enough to keep the Ivy Leaguers at bay. When the smoke cleared, Watson was left standing with $53,601, Harvard finished with $42,399 and MIT came in a distant third, with $100. Adding insult to injury is the fact that Watson wasn't even in the same building as his muggle competitors -- nor, for that matter, was he in the same state. IBM kept all of the machine's processors and memory chips at its Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. Watson had already come up with answers to the questions prior to this week's showdown, but placed wages, chose categories and buzzed in responses in real-time. According to IBM, Watson's presence wouldn't have changed the outcome of the game, which was followed by a discussion on the effects that similar technologies could have on the financial world. The most immediate impact? Bruised egos. Re-live the event at IBM's liveblog below, or find more information in the PR after the break.
IBM turns 100, brags about bench pressing more than companies half its age
IBM is quite possibly the only tech company around that might have genuine difficulty whittling a list of its industry defining contributions down to a mere 100. And it's an impressively diverse collection at that, including the floppy disk, the social security system, the Apollo space missions, and the UPC barcode. All of this self-congratulation is not without cause, of course. IBM was born 100 years ago today in Endicott, New York, as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, a merger between three companies, all peddling different technologies. That diversity has helped define IBM from its inception, and has offered a sense of flexibility, making it possible to keep in step with technology's ever-quickening pace for a century. In 1944, the company helped usher in modern computing with the room-sized Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, and 37 years later, it played an important role in defining the era of home computing with the much more manageable IBM Personal Computer. In 1997, IBM introduced a machine that beat the world's reigning chess champion, and earlier this year, it created one that trounced two of the greatest players in Jeopardy history. These days, when the company is not building machines dedicated to outsmarting mankind, it's looking to promote sustainable development through its Smarter Planet program. So, happy centennial, Big Blue, and here's to 100 more, assuming your super-smart machines don't enslave us all in the meantime.
Ken Jennings talks about losing to Watson, being human after all
In a piece for Slate titled "My Puny Human Brain," former-Jeopardy-greatest Ken Jennings talks briefly through his experience playing against IBM's Watson. If you were hoping for some sour grapes, you won't find it here, but Ken gives a great insight into what it feels like to be an underdog human up against a PR darling supercomputer. "Watson has lots in common with a top-ranked human Jeopardy! player: It's very smart, very fast, speaks in an uneven monotone, and has never known the touch of a woman." Ken wraps it up on an uplifting, humans-are-going-to-be-alright-after-all note, and we seem to have something in our eye...
The Engadget Show - 018: GM's Micky Bly, Watson researcher David Gondek, EN-V demo, Atrix 4G
Humans, allow us to present the latest episode of The Engadget Show -- you won't want to miss it. First up, Josh and Tim Stevens sit down with GM's chief electrical engineer Micky Bly for a frank conversation on the future of automotive technology, chatting about everything from networked vehicles (with a surprise visit from the unmistakable EN-V prototype), electric cars, advancing smartphone integration, and a world without stoplights. Then, Micky announces and demos Chevy's new MyLink infotainment system, in a world-first, Engadget Show-exclusive look at the new technology. Fresh off a resounding victory over mankind, IBM's Watson researcher David Gondek joins Josh and Paul for a breakdown of Watson's Jeopardy domination and an in-depth conversation about machine-learning, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and the meaning of love. Last up, Josh, Paul, and Nilay bust out the Motorola Atrix 4G and break down the week in news, including Nokia's Windows Phone announcement, the rise of Honeycomb tablets, and everything worth talking about from Mobile World Congress. This is one you absolutely should not miss. What are you waiting for? Watch it now! Hit up the video stream after the break or download the show in HD below! Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, Paul Miller Special guests: Micky Bly, David Gondek Produced and Directed by: Chad Mumm Executive Producer: Joshua Fruhlinger Edited by: Danny Madden Music by: Note! Visuals by: Batsly Adams Opening titles by: Julien Nantiec Taped live at SIR Stage37 Download the Show: The Engadget Show - 018 (HD) / The Engadget Show - 018 (iPod / iPhone / Zune formatted) / The Engadget Show - 018 (Small) Subscribe to the Show: [iTunes] Subscribe to the Show directly in iTunes (MP4). [Zune] Subscribe to the Show directly in the Zune Marketplace (MP4). [RSS MP4] Add the Engadget Show feed (MP4) to your RSS aggregator and have it delivered automatically. [HD RSS] Get the Engadget Show delivered automatically in HD. [iPad RSS] Get the Engadget Show in iPad-friendly adaptive format.
Watson wins it all, humans still can do some other cool things
In case you missed it, Watson won again tonight. He even got the Final Jeopardy question correct this time, a multi-layered reference to Bram Stroker that he bet $10k on. His final score over the two rounds ended up at $77,147 (Watson has this thing for betting strange amounts that usually end in a 7), while Ken Jennings got $24,000 and Brad Rutter did $21,600 -- both humans saving a bit of face after last round's stunning defeat. Watson will be giving his $1,000,000 winnings to charity. So, a few things: We're totally surprised, in a larger theoretical sense, that a computer could win at Jeopardy. We're totally not surprised that Watson, the system built by IBM over the past few years at the expense of millions of dollars, actually succeeded at winning at Jeopardy. Computers have better reflexes than humans, as it turns out. Deal with it. If you can't tell, we're having a little trouble processing all the emotions brought on by a Jeopardy win from IBM's Watson supercomputer. It's obvious that IBM's DeepQA research program has developed some of the most sophisticated natural language AI known to man. At the same time, Jeopardy questions aren't really that hard. As evidenced by watching these Watson-dominated matches, all three contestants knew the answer most of the time, but Watson was just quicker on the draw. Of course, it's no surprise that computers have quicker reflexes (even with the "handicap" of having to mechanically press the same style of clicker as Meatbag 001 and Meatbag 002), so why shouldn't Watson get to use his inbuilt advantage to the utmost? It seems like a fair fight to us. The question of "who is better at Jeopardy" aside (trust us, it's Watson), the larger implications for the human race and our computer sidekicks are still unclear. Watson can currently answer simple trivia questions, sometimes couched in puns or minor riddles, with a decent level of accuracy. The answers themselves are no more than a high school student with Wikipedia access could pull off, and Watson has no way of knowing for sure when he's right. He lacks a solid, computer-readable database of "facts" like a Wolfram Alpha, or the incredible reasoning abilities of a human, instead relying on statistical analysis of vast amounts of text. When it comes to Jeopardy, it turns out to be Good Enough, which is actually a pretty incredible achievement in the world of AI, and we're sure we'll be finding out soon what other applications IBM thinks Watson is Good Enough at -- they're thinking everything from healthcare to the financial industry. Still, we're sure some of us clicker-speed-nit-pickers will remain unimpressed. Make sure to check out the Engadget Show tomorrow, where we'll be chatting up the creators of Watson about all this, but for now... 01000011 01101111 01101110 01100111 01110010 01100001 01110100 01110011 00100001
Watson soundly beats the humans in first round of Jeopardy
Well, there's one more round of Jeopardy to go, but the round that began yesterday and ended today was a major win for the silicon contingent. After starting the day tied with Brad, Watson barely let his opponents get in a word edgewise during Double Jeopardy, and broke the $36k mark before Final Jeopardy. Both Brad and Ken were able to double up on the Final Jeopardy question, at which Watson failed miserably, but he appended his answer (Toronto) with plenty of question marks, and bet less than a grand. The final result was Watson at $35,754, Brad at $10,000, and Ken Jennings with $4,800. This round's scores will be added to the scores of tomorrow's round to determine the overall winner, who will walk (or teraflop) away with $1 million in cash.
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 destroys all humans in Jeopardy practice round (video!)
So, in February IBM's Watson will be in an official Jeopardy tournament-style competition with titans of trivia Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. That competition will be taped starting tomorrow, but hopefully we'll get to know if a computer really can take down the greatest Jeopardy players of all time in "real time" as the show airs. It will be a historic event on par with Deep Blue vs. Garry Kasparov, and we'll absolutely be glued to our seats. Today IBM and Jeopardy offered a quick teaser of that match, with the three contestants knocking out three categories at lightning speed. Not a single question was answered wrongly, and at the end of the match Watson, who answers questions with a cold computer voice, telegraphing his certainty with simple color changes on his "avatar," was ahead with $4,400, Ken had $3,400, and Brad had $1,200. Alright, a "win" for silicon for now, but without any Double Jeopardy or Final Jeopardy it's hard to tell how well Watson will do in a real match. What's clear is that he isn't dumb, and it seems like the best chance the humans will have will be buzzing in before Watson can run through his roughly three second decision process and activate his buzzer mechanically. An extra plus for the audience is a graphic that shows the three answers Watson has rated as most likely to be correct, and how certain he is of the answer he selects -- we don't know if that will make it into the actual TV version, but we certainly hope so. It's always nice to know the thought processes of your destroyer. Stand by for video of the match, along with an interview with David Gondek, an engineer on the project. Update: Video of the match is up, check it out after the break! Update 2: And we have the interview as well, along with a bit more on how Watson actually works. %Gallery-114391%
IBM demonstrates Watson supercomputer in Jeopardy practice match
We're at IBM's HQ in upstate NY, where IBM will pit its monstrous Watson project (in the middle buzzer spot) against two Jeopardy greats, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson has been in development for four years, and this is its first big public practice match before it goes on national TV in February for three matches against these giants of trivia. Unlike IBM's Deep Blue chess project in the 90s, which was pretty much pure math, Watson has to deal with the natural language and punny nature of real Jeopardy questions. IBM, ever the salesman, has thrown gobs of its fancy server hardware at the project, with 10 racks full of IBM Power 750 servers, stuffed with 15 terabytes of RAM and 2,880 processor operating at a collective 80 teraflops. IBM says it would take one CPU over two hours to answer a typical question, so this massive parallel processing is naturally key -- hopefully fast enough to buzz in before Ken and Brad catch on to the human-oriented questioning. We'll update this post as the match begins, and we'll have some video for you later in the day.
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]
The Daily Grind: Do we level too fast?
The old timer shifted the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other before launching a wad of foul blackness into a nearby spittoon. "Leveling?" he cackled. "Is that what you kids today call it? This fancy-pantsy autobahn of progression from zero to infinity in under a week? Why, back in my day, leveling came at a snail's pace -- no, with snails; you could actually see their progress. We strained forward, fighting for every millimeter of experience bar. Of course, if we got ourselves killed, the game'd just kick us on our backs, leer into our losery faces, and take a good chunk of that experience away." His eyes grew distant and haunted as he dredged up the memories. "Of course..." His voice faltered. "Of course, that was nothing compared to Hell Levels. We lost many good souls during Hell Levels, minds broken by the drudgery. Now take me back inside -- it's time for Jeopardy!" Hey you! Internet person! What do you think -- do we level too fast in MMOs these days? Is leveling just a joke now, a minor speedbump on the way to the "real" game? Or do you appreciate the faster pace? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
TUAW first look: JEOPARDY! for iOS
I'm not one to give up on hope. I've been trying out various incarnations of branded Jeopardy games since dinosaurs roamed the earth (I believe that T. Rex used an early version of Microsoft Windows before going extinct). The latest version to grace us is a US $1.99 mobile app, now available from App Store for iPhone and other iOS devices. Duly licensed from Sony, this JEOPARDY! game (with mandatory caps and exclamation point, of course) brings the same branded detail as many of the previous versions while completely missing the point of what makes Jeopardy fun. It's multiple choice.
