Archive for the ‘broadcast television’ Category
One Missed Putt
If you go back and read the media coverage prior to this past week’s 2012 Open Championship at Royal Lytham and St. Anne’s in Lancashire, U.K., very few sports writers were talking about Ernie Els.
But it was exactly Ernie Els, the one-time British Open Champion and 42 year-old grinder who walked away with the Claret jug yesterday after surreptitiously ousting Australia’s Adam Scott who had led much of the tournament, and was, in fact, leading yesterday through the 17th hole, before collapsing with a missed par putt on the 18th hole in front of thousands of golf fans in attendance and millions more in the TV and Internet audience.
What made the collapse even more painful was that Els and Scott are good friends, and for Scott, this would have been his first major victory.
Despite the outcome, the 2012 Open Championship made for dramatic sports television, especially if you’re a golf fan.
Though other notables, including Tiger Woods, world #1 Luke Donald, Rory McIlroy, Bubba Watson, and a handful of others seemed like they might have a chance to head up higher on the leaderboard at times, it was Scott who seemed destined for victory, playing strategically, cautiously, and most importantly in golf, consistently –that is, all the way up to the 15th hole at Royal Lytham.
But then, as is the case with the game of golf, fate, the winds, and perhaps even some nerves, got in Scott’s way, and with a long birdie putt on 18, Els earned his way to his second Claret jug.
One couldn’t help but have empathy for Scott — he seemed calm and collected throughout the tournament, and no doubt played steady, eddy golf. But the closing holes of a major are key, and just a couple of minor slip-ups — overshooting the green on 17, and driving into one of Royal Lytham’s lethal pot bunkers on 18 — sealed his fate.
As for Tiger Woods, it seemed going into Sunday he might have a chance to overcome Scott early in the day. Throughout the tournament, Woods had only pulled out his driver once, instead opting for smart and more strategic placement of his drives using irons to avoid Lytham’s 205 bunkers. But in the end, that strategy shortened Tiger’s distance off the tees, and lengthened his approaches, making it especially difficult to get close to the already-hard-to-reach pins on Sunday.
And Ernie Els, well certainly his iron play kept him in the running, but it was his putter that won the day. His 12-foot putt on 18 to draw Scott one shot closer to him will be recorded in perpetuity on the great Open Championship highlight reels.
Unfortunately, so will Adam Scott’s missed 7 footer that, had he made it, would at least have given one more opportunity to close the deal in a playoff with Els.
With three majors down, and one to go (next month’s PGA Championship will be held at the Ocean Course in Kiawah Island, South Carolina), this has proven to be a year of dramatic golf and even more dramatic majors.
It’s also likely going to be the year that golf’s key governing authorities, the USGA and the Royal and Ancient in the U.K., are going to face increased pressure to finally contend with what many call golf’s “steroid,” the belly putter, which players like Els, Scott, Matt Kuchar, and so many others have begun using that allows them to “anchor” the putter in their chests or bellies, and which many think is an unfair advantage.
Me, I’m just hoping for one last and final major in the form of the PGA Championship that is even half as dramatic as the British and U.S. Opens have been, all of which will have been the consummate set up for this September’s Ryder Cup matches in Medina!
British Rocketballz
Golf fans everywhere, be forewarned: I went and bought myself one of those TaylorMade Rocketballz drivers over the weekend, and everything those pro golfers say in the TV ads are true, so long as you don’t swing TOO hard.
I was on the 18th tee of one of our local courses here in Austin, Riverside (where renowned golf teacher Harvey Penick once lived and taught), and hit the ball a good 280 yards straight down the middle, and this from the back tees. Much farther than I had ever hit the ball even from the middle tees, and so straight and long that it earned some serious “Ooohs” from the 20-something flatbellies I had been joined up with.
Never mind the rest of my game’s still a muddling mess…the point is, the Rocketballz driver lets you hit it like the pros, at least once in a while, and allows you to live your Walter Mitty-ish golf fantasies out on your local public course.
Of course, the pros this weekend we were focused on were Steve Stricker, among others, whom many of us were hoping would become only the fourth golfer in history to win the same tournament four years in a row.
But Zach Johnson, another midwestern favorite who hails from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had other ideas, taking the trophy away from Troy Matteson, who led wire to wire but lost in a playoff on the second time the two played the 18th hole.
Two shots we won’t soon forget: Matteson’s 59′ foot putt on 17 to make eagle to tie Johnson and get in the playoff, and Johnson’s brilliant sand shot from the “Stricker” sandtrap on 18, a shot that landed about two feet from the hole and pretty much cinched Johnson’s victory.
And THIS time, I remembered to add extra time to the broadcast schedule on my DVR so I could actually watch the playoff. What a concept!
To me, there’s nothing like watching a golf playoff, especially when it’s mano a mano like that.
It’s nervewracking, it’s compelling, it’s, sometimes, yes, even spellbinding.
So, major kudos to Zach Johnson, as this makes for his second win this year (he also took the honors at the Ft. Worth-held Colonial back in May) and sends him roaring back up the FedEx points list.
Now, most all golf attention turns to Royal Lythan & St. Annes in Lancashire, UK, for the third PGA major of the year, the 2012 British Open.
As PGA Tour.Com pointed out this AM, first-time major winners have won nine straight at the Open Championship, so consider the field wide open.
Tiger Woods has certainly been on a streak, but there’s lots of hungry Irish lads like Padraig Harrington, Rory McIlroy, and Graeme McDowell who’d like a sip from that Claret Jug as well.
Harrington’s won the Open twice, Woods’ three times, Els’ once…McDowell and McIlroy, uh, never.
David Duval, who last won an Open at Royal Lytham in 2001, will also be making a return visit.
The action starts early in the A.M. EST Thursday, so get those VCRs and DVRs tuned and ready to go.
I have a distinct feeling this is going to be a seriously compelling, and competitive, week of golf.
Sewing Up The London Olympic Games
The new Ralph Lauren-designed uniforms for U.S. Olympics athletes at the coming London Olympics games may look spiffy, but a number of U.S. politicians have come out recently to complain they were manufactured in China. Let the games begin!
Well, it seems that the London Olympic Games are only a couple of short weeks away now.
As we get closer and closer to the lighting of the London 2012 Olympic torch, we will also start to see lines get drawn in the digital and social sand, as this will likely be the most “social” Olympic Games ever.
There will be lots to juxtapose in this year’s games in London with those of Beijing in 2008.
Most notably, the fact that we won’t have a 12 hour delay by the broadcast networks. Instead, NBC has already indicated that they will show many of the events live. American GDP could swoon to a new low in these London Olympic summer games!
If you’re looking for a place to follow the games, there will be no shortage of television and digital opportunities. Just this week, Facebook and NBC announced a collaboration for “transmedia” coverage of the London Olympic Games.
In that deal, data from Facebook will inform TV coverage on NBC and other channels that will carry portions of the Summer Games starting on July 27, according to The New York Times. The specific uses will vary, says the Times, but there will be a “Facebook Talk Meter” occasionally shown on TV to reflect what is being said online.
Conversely, on Facebook the NBC Olympics page will get frequent updates with what the companies call “exclusive content” for fans only. Fans will then be able to share what videos and articles they’re perusing on the network’s Olympics website.
It’s hard to believe that in only 4 short years, Facebook has grown from 100 million users, the number they were at during the Beijing Olympic Games, to over 900 million. There’s no question this will be a much more social Olympics, but let’s also not forget the projected TV audience is 4 billion (In Beijing, the global TV audience was estimated at 4.4 billion.)
Speaking of China, U.S. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) castigated the U.S. Olympic Committee for its decision to have the U.S. Olympics team dressed in Ralph Lauren-designed berets, blazers and pants that were manufactured in China even as the U.S. textile industry struggles to keep U.S. workers at their sewing machines.
Maybe they should introduce sewing into the Olympics as an official sport and we can have ourselves a “sew-off?”
I recently did some Olympic scouting of my own, looking for Websites and mobile apps to help make sure I keep up with the Virtual Joneses during the London sports festouche. Here’s a few of them I unearthed:
- The official London Olympics Web site — http://www.london2012.com
- Olympic Movement Website — http://www.olympic.org
- BBC Olympics — http://www.bbc.co.uk/2012/
- U.S. Coverage, NBC: http://www.nbcolympics.com
I also found an interesting app for the iPad, the “Ultimate Olympic Guide,” which cost me a whopping $.99 and provided some nice background and overviews of each of the Olympic sports.
Feel free to add any other useful London Olympics resources in the comments section below.
CNBC: Texas’ Is the 2012 “Top State For Business”
I turned on CNBC this afternoon to catch up on business news just in time to see Texas governor Rick Perry doing a standup interview over at the University of Texas to celebrate Texas’ being chosen for the third time in the past several years as the “America’s Top State for Business.”
According to CNBC’s Scott Cohn, Texas “racked up an impressive 1,604 points out of a possible 2,500,” and had top-10 finishes in “six of our 10 categories of competitiveness.”
Texas has never finished below second place since CNBC started the study in 2007.
This year’s categories, developed in concert with the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council on Competitiveness, included the following: “Cost of Doing Business,” “Workforce,” “Quality of Life,” “Infrastructure and Transportation,” “Economy,” “Education,” “Technology and Innovation,” “Business Friendliness,” “Access to Capital,” and “Cost of Living.”
Diving deeper into the results, Texas has the nation’s best “Infrastructure” and improved to second place for “Technology and Innovation,” and boasts the third lowest “Cost of Living.”
On the downside, Texas came in 26th in “Education” and 35th of “Quality of Life,” apparently getting dinged for less available health care and higher property and sales taxes.
Obviously, this is very exciting news here in Austin and across the state of Texas, especially considering the vast diversification we’ve seen of the Texas economy over the past decade. When I was growing up in Texas, energy and oil dominated the economy, but we’ve seen massive investments and innovations in more diverse fields these past 20 years, including high tech, telecommunications, biotechnology and life sciences, health care, and many more, all in a business-friendly (read: less regulation and taxes) climate.
But we’ve still got some work to do, I would submit.
If you’re a person of little means, whatever else you do, don’t get sick here. Texas is not expected to expand Medicaid or establish a health insurance exchange, according to another recent announcement by Governor Perry, and only 31 percent of physicians in Texas accepted Medicaid patients in 2011, according to the Texas Medical Association and as reported in the Texas Tribune.
So, congrats to the great state of Texas…I’m really glad to hear we’re doing a great job of taking care of business…but clearly there’s some work yet to be done in taking better care of our people!
Impressions From SXSW Interactive 2012: Q&A With Twitter-Challenged Cisco Social Video Guru Tim “Washtub” Washer
I apologize in advance for the following interview.
A colleague responded to my posting of this video on Facebook and wrote “Wins the award for least content in an interview.”
Noah, you’re really being far too generous.
That said, there’s nothing more fun than interviewing Tim “Washtub” Washer, former IBM social media pioneer and now social video guru with Cisco.
Tim is a comedy writer and actor whose credits range from The Late Show With David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Saturday Night Live, and more recently, The Onion.
As you’ll see from our interview, all Tim has to do is show up and breathe and Scott and I would laugh. Really! The fact that we couldn’t seem to land an actual time to conduct the interview amidst a SXSW chock full of social mediated, geo-located smartphone applications…well, that tells you pretty much everything you need to know.
During his tenure at Big Blue, Washer produced one of the most brilliant corporate social video campaigns ever, “The Art of the Sale,” which was selected as a Comedy Central “Staff Favorite.” And you know they were reaching for the bottom of the barrel when selecting an IBM video series for such a distinguished honor.
Tim’s work has been covered by Advertising Age, NPR, and The New York Times, and he holds an MBA from the University of Texas.
When we weren’t laughing, Scott and I spoke with Tim about his having left IBM under auspicious circumstances, how he came to be a corporate comedian, and why it was that we couldn’t use Cisco Telepresence technology to conduct such a scintillating interview.
The Artist
I’ve not had time to see all the films nominated for “Best Picture” for this year’s Academy Awards, and will, in fact, be flying up to Toronto next Sunday as this year’s Oscars are set to be awarded.
Will "The Artist" win this year's Oscar for "Best Picture?" Perhaps a more important question, what will companies around the globe do to avoid becoming victims of their own industries' transitional equivalent from silent to talking motion pictures?
Why is it that I’m always on a plane during these big events? Three weeks ago it was the Super Bowl. Reminds me of the time that Spain was playing Germany in the UEFA Euro soccer finals in 2008. I was flying back from Madrid to the States, and there were all these poor Spaniards stuck on the plane as Germany played Spain for that once every-four-year title.
The good news was, Spain won (for them…I don’t want to start any internecine football blogging wars here).
I did get out to see one of the nominated films this weekend, Michael Hazanaviciu’s “The Artist,” a mostly silent film focused on the late 1920s and early 1930s which explores the transition from silent to “talky” pictures.
Spoiler alert: If you haven’t seen the movie and plan on doing so, stop reading now!
I mean it…I’m about to spill the beans!
Actually, there aren’t a lot of beans to spill. The movie plot could just as easily haven been taken out of the radio-to-TV transition, or the broadcast-to-cable transition, or even the search-to-social network transition.
Meaning, that change is universal and inevitable. And those who choose to protect the business models of the past and to ignore the potential of those of the future are doomed to history’s sidelines.
In “The Artist,” George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is the silent movie star of his time, but as he meets up-and-coming but still fledgling actress Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) his movie studio, Kinograph Studios, led by Al Zimmer (John Goodman), Valentin fights the rising tide of “talkies,” and soon finds himself going bankrupt during the Great Depression as silent films go the way of the dinosaur and his own last-ditch attempt at self-financing one last talkie is a failure.
It’s not without some irony that this film is, largely, silent. Yet in its own unique way, it demonstrates the power of visual storytelling, seeming to explain why silent films had their day — that a good story is, in fact, universal, no matter the manner in which is related.
As its viewers experience, it’s not until the very last scene of the film that we finally hear George Valentin speak at all, as he explains with a heavy French accent that he will do yet another take of a scene with his new co-star, Ms. Miller, “with pleasure.”
He’s had his epiphany, his denouement is complete, and Valentin seems set to become a part of the future he once denied, only this time more as dancer than actor.
He has, in short, evolved.
The object lesson in all this?
In some ways, it’s akin to Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma, in which the author outlined the opportunity and challenges of disruptive technologies and innovations.
Clayton’s basic thesis suggests that a disruptive technology is “an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually goes on to disrupt an existing market and value network.”
If the introduction of “talking” motion pictures’ and subsequent disruption of the silent film market doesn’t fit this definition, I’m not sure what does.
This transition, of course, didn’t come without some pain, experienced both by the motion picture industry at large, and a variety of its “players.” Actors such as the fictional George Valentin (but also scores of silent motion picture actors ranging from Theda Bara to Mary Pickford to Charlie Chaplin) were impacted by the transition, often when their voices didn’t match their silent film image.
But technical challenges also abounded: New mikes and cameras had to be developed to prevent pick-up of the grinding noise that silent film cameras made as the film moved through the sprockets, and the industry had to find a way to synchronize voices properly, considering the sound head on a projector is about 10 frames away from the projected image. Even new sound-proof sound stages had to be built, as did squeak-proof dollies.
But, ultimately, the industry and many of its players did adapt, and in the process generated a variety of new opportunities for newly required vocations (sound editors, boom operators, voice actors, and on and on). But, many also fell by the wayside.
As for “The Artist” and whether or not a silent movie in the year 2012 can win an Oscar for “Best Picture,” keep an eye out on the evolving social sentiment leading up to Sunday’s awards ceremony, for which IBM has partnered with the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab to bring you the Oscar Senti-Meter where we follow the Twittersphere action day-by-day.
Dave Drove A Ford
“Dave drove a Ford.”
This year's SuperBowl ads sometimes left little to the imagination, yet also provided some needed optimism about the future of the American dynasty...along with the slingshot babies and beer-retrieving canines.
That’s all the ash-colored gentleman who survived the GM “Apocalypse” in last night’s SuperBowl advertising lineup had to say. And then Ford pounced, trying to convince GM to pull the ad from SuperBowl rotation, arguing it was misleading.
Finally, some SuperBowl advertising drama!
As promised, I was on a JetBlue plane flying back to Texas from California last night. The pilot joked before takeoff that he would get us up and off the ground as soon as possible, so we could get down to the business of watching the game, and then fate played a cruel joke as it took several longgg minutes for the DirecTV satellite to kick back in so we could join Al and Chris.
So, I missed a number of the early SuperBowl commercials, but being the faithful marketing pundit that I am, I went back and watched them all this morning.
I’ll give the overall year in SuperBowl advertising a “B-.” Better than past years, but still plenty of upside available based on the inventory I watched.
Without any question, the most impactful spot of the evening was the “Imported from Detroit” spot starring Clint Eastwood.
He had my attention from the moment I heard it was him, and the message was powerful, couldn’t have been in better context, and was the kind of economic and America cheerleading ad we could stand more of these days.
What was it trying to sell? Cars? American exceptionalism? Detroit? All of the above? Yes.
Beyond that, I try to think of those moments that were not only funny or interesting, but stuck with me and pulled their brand along with it. Remember, advertising’s supposed to sell!
So, here we go…
The moment the baby in the infirmary in the E-Trade ad responded, “Speed dating.”
Classic.
Jerry Seinfeld trying to buy some poor schmuck’s Acura, a spot which also saw the return of the “Soup Nazi.”
The cute little rescue dog ad rescuing people from thirst by getting them a Bud Light, titled “Herewego.”
The nice, big dog from Doritos who blackmails its owner with a bag of chips so as not to spill the beans about the missing cat.
The speed racing bulldog Mr. Quigly, who outpaced all the greyhounds in a commercial for Sketchers (although I don’t remember the specific shoe!)
And then there was that really subtle, yet memorable, message from Telaflora.com about Valentine’s Day: “Give and you shall receive.”
Ooo-kaayyyy.
But there’s little doubt, the night belonged to the automakers.
11 out of the 36 spots I counted were from car purveyors, not including the “Imported from Detroit” spot starring Eastwood.
Not all of them were funny, and certainly not every single one of them was memorable, but they were there, en masse, in the aggregate as a seemingly strong industry spending big money to pitch their latest wares.
That seemed to be a message in and of itself, a resurgent car market as leading indicator for an even more resurgent economy.
And as Clint Eastwood reminded us all, it’s only halftime in America.
First Down And Ten Million
It wasnt exactly the best sports weekend of the year.
Golf season has ground pretty much to a halt
The English Premier League big game of the weekend (Chelsea v. Manchester United) was snowed out.
Thank Heavens for the Philadelphia Eagles.
No matter what you might think about Michael Vick, his performance on the football field this year has been nothing less than stellar, and the comeback victory he and the Eagles served up on the New York Giants yesterday on the Giants’ home turf was downright embarrassing.
How often in the NFL do you see a team come back from a 31-10 defict in the fourth quarter only then to win 38-31?
Not very frickin’ often, and nothin’ like yesterday.
As for DeSean Jackson and his humbling 65-yard punt return for a TD at the end of the game, all I have to say is “wow”…and someday, dude, those end zone antics are going to cost you six more points…but it sure is fun to watch.
On the sports marketing front, I just saw an article (and for the life of me can’t find it again) which indicated that NFL football, particularly on Thursday, Sunday, and Monday evenings, is nearly the last thing big left in appointment television, and that the networks, though not making beaucoup bucks from NFL advertisers, are using it as a massive venue to promote the rest of their TV schedule.
Rock on, NFL.
Just don’t look to find anything to watch soon on GoogleTV, which The New York Times joked earlier had Google making its first programming cancellation.
Next month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, Google was expected to have a major coming-out party for Google TV on a range of TV sets, but according to the Times piece, Google has asked the TV makers to delay their introductions.
In other words, wait for Google TV, Version 2.0
Me, I’ve learned my early adopter lessons, over and over and over again. My Apple TV is still collecting dust, although Netflix on the Wii has found a place close to my heart…and my remote. Maybe because it (mostly) works???
Being the Texas boy that I am, I’ve also been on the hunt for a bird hunting game for my Wii for some time now, and lo and behold, where do you think I finally found one?
At an Academy sporting goods retail store here in Austin in the checkout line. I was purchasing some AR-15 and .40 caliber ammunition for a weekend trip to South Austin’s Red’s Indoor Gun Range in Oak Hill to shoot the real thing, and there it was, product placement galore, staring at me from the check-out line bin.
I loves me some marketing that works!
The price for the bird shooting game and the Wii plastic imitation shot gun was $25.00 (after the nice checkout guy gave me a $5.00 coupon break), which, for the record, cost about the same as two boxes of .243 ammuntion.
Put another way, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper to shoot at your TV screen (virtually speaking) than it is an AR-15…and almost as much fun.
The game’s branded by Remington, no less, the great American firearms manufacturer (although “Mastiff Games” seems to have done the actual development).
The game title? “Great American Bird Hunt,” of course.
You can see it in action here.
Finally, speaking of good shots and the NFL, Dallas Cowboys’ interim coach (and long ago former QB) has now gone 4-2 since taking over for Wade Phillips and is a possible candidate to take over the ‘Boys on an ongoing basis.
I’d like to think it’s true, but that means Jerry Jones would have to have made a good decision.
Natural Language Processing For $500, Alex
I recently provided a personal remembrance of the Kasparov v. Deep Blue chess matches of the late 1990s, the IBM “John Henry” contest between a Russian chess grandmaster and an IBM supercomputer.
At the end of the post, per the custom of American TV game show Jeopardy!,”I posed the answer with a question: “What is Watson?”
Here’s your expanded answer: Watson is a new supercomputer, named after founder Thomas J. Watson, and programmed once again by a set of IBM Researchers, this time to compete on the longstanding game show Jeopardy! against the show’s two most successful and celebrated contestants — Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.
The first-ever man vs. machine Jeopardy! competition will air on February 14, 15 and 16, 2011, with two matches being played over three consecutive days.
Watson was built by a team of IBM scientists who set out to accomplish a grand challenge –- build a computing system that rivals a human’s ability to answer questions posed in natural language with speed, accuracy and confidence.
The Jeopardy! format provides the ultimate challenge because the game’s clues involve analyzing subtle meaning, irony, riddles, and other complexities in which humans excel and computers traditionally do not.
Competing against Watson will be two of the most celebrated players ever to appear on Jeopardy! Ken Jennings 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.
World-class Jeopardy! players Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter will test the mettle of IBM's Watson supercomputer in February 2011.
Brad Rutter won the highest cumulative amount ever by a single Jeopardy! player, earning $3,255,102. The total amount is a combination of Rutter’s original appearance in 2002, plus three Tournament wins: the “Tournament of Champions” and the “Million Dollar Masters Tournament” in 2002 and the “Ultimate Tournament of Champions” in 2005.
Artificial Intelligence That Could Save Humanity For $300
The grand prize for this competition will be $1 million with second place earning $300,000 and third place $200,000. Rutter and Jennings will donate 50 percent of their winnings to charity and IBM will donate 100 percent of its winnings to charity.
“After four years, our scientific team believes that Watson is ready for this challenge based on its ability to rapidly comprehend what the Jeopardy! clue is asking, analyze the information it has access to, come up with precise answers, and develop an accurate confidence in its response,” said Dr. David Ferrucci, the scientist leading the IBM Research team that has created Watson.
Dr. David Dr. David Ferucci is the principal investigator and team lead for the DeepQA/Watson system that will be challenging the world-class Jeopardy! champions.
Beyond our excitement for the match itself, our team is very motivated by the possibilities that Watson’s breakthrough computing capabilities hold for building a smarter planet and helping people in their business tasks and personal lives.”
“We’re thrilled that Jeopardy! is considered a benchmark of ultimate knowledge,” said Harry Friedman, Executive Producer of Jeopardy!. “Performing well on Jeopardy! requires a combination of skills, and it will be fascinating to see whether a computer can compete against arguably the two best Jeopardy! players ever.”
Watson: Spars In More Than 50 Games To Prep For The Best
This past fall, Watson played more than 50 “sparring games” against former Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions contestants in final preparation for its television debut.
In addition, Watson has taken and passed the same Jeopardy! contestant test that humans take to qualify to play on the show, giving Jeopardy! producers confidence that the match will be both entertaining and competitive.
You can see highlights of those sparring matches here.
Real World Applications for Watson’s Technology
One of the criticisms that emanated during and after the Deep Blue chess matches was that IBM didn’t demonstrate the real-world applicability of the technology behind the chess moves.
This time around, IBM is working to answer more of those kinds of questions up front.
To be sure, beyond Jeopardy!, the technology behind Watson can be adapted to solve problems and drive progress in various fields (I’m already trying to understand how we could leverage it on our Web site!)
The Watson computer has the ability to sift through vast amounts of data and return precise answers, ranking its confidence in its answers. Such technology could be applied to a whole range of industries: healthcare, to more accurately diagnose patients based on empirical data; tech, to improve online health desks; tourism, to help provide tourists with information about cities; customer service, to improve prompting and directing customer support inquiries via phone and web…the list goes on.
Yes, But What Is Watson?
Watson is a breakthrough human achievement in the scientific field of Question and Answering, also known as “QA.” The Watson software is powered by an IBM POWER7 server optimized to handle the massive number of tasks that Watson must perform at rapid speeds to analyze complex language and deliver correct responses to Jeopardy! clues.
The system incorporates a number of proprietary technologies for the specialized demands of processing an enormous number of concurrent tasks and data while analyzing information in real time.
About Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!, the winner of 28 Emmy awards since its syndicated debut in 1984, is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most awards won by a TV Game Show. The series is the #1-rated quiz show in syndication with nearly 9 million daily viewers. Jeopardy! is produced by Sony Pictures Television, a Sony Pictures Entertainment Company. It is distributed domestically by CBS Television Distribution and internationally by CBS Television International, both units of CBS Corp.
For more information about Jeopardy!, visit www.Jeopardy.com
To learn more about Watson and to view a video series about the DeepQA technology powering Watson, please visit www.ibmwatson.com.
You can also join the social discussion about Watson (be sure to include the hashtag #ibmwatson in your Tweets!)
If you want, you can also become Watson’s friend on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ibmwatson.
Even supercomputers need friends.
turbotodd
Turbotodd 