You may not think its so impressive - but, I beg to differ.

The BIG deal is the formatting of the questions, and the Strange

phrasing that is VERY Typical in Jeopardy. So - its all about

understanding natural language.

I recorded the shows on my Tivo - and will also be getting the show

tonite.

I watched the 1st show, and finished up to about 1/2 of the 2nd show.

Its pretty AMAZING indeed! And, my son - who is 9 - is ALSO Really

enjoying watching it with me. We also found it VERY Fascinating - that

the 1st 1/3 of the show each night is giving the audience all the

background about Watson - including spec's on the computing power HW -

and showing us the actual computers & rooms, the footage of earlier test

Jeopardy games (not done w/Alex Trebeck), and also interviews with many

of the developers. Its really pretty wild stuff - and definitely a HUGE

Leap in computing technology. I also read a whole NY Times Mag article

about it - so I knew in advance a lot of details about the project -

even way before the show was aired!

Stephen - in regards to your question. Yes - then actually have a

Mechanical setup that allows Watson to ACTUALLY push the Buzzer - to

Buzz in and say he is ready to answer.

Jerry - as for the timing when Watson gets the question - I am not sure

about that. It was mentioned in the magazine article. I think Watson

gets the question at the moment its presented to the audience & the

other players. But, like the other players - he is NOT allowed to answer

until the question has been read completely!

For those who haven't watched it yet - here's a little more about what

we get to see.

There is a Graphical "Avatar" that represents Watson. The colors &

graphics changed depending on what Watson is doing - as he's analyzing a

question - and even when he has an answer and how "Confident" he is

about the answers. Also, what is displayed at the bottom of the screen

for us to see on TV is a kind of horizontal bar chart with numbers.

Watson comes up with various possible answers. The TOP 3 are displayed -

along with a "confidence" level percentage. There is a vertical line

that is displayed - and Watson will ONLY give an answer if his Top

answer actually goes beyond that vertical line. The exception being

Double-Jeopardy, which he MUST give an answer. And, since his top answer

did NOT reach that vertical line during the one Double-Jeopardy question

I saw - he actually said something like "I Think" or "I will Guess that

the answer is"! I forget the exact wording - but, I thought it was

pretty cool - since he was NOT sure of his answer. But, in the end - he

still had the right answer! Also - at one point - for the Double

Jeopardy - he gave this very exact wager $ amount - like $3675 - and the

whole audience Erupted with Laughter. Because - a human Never on the

show gives such an Exact wager like that!

Anyway - I guess that's it for now. I TOO look forwards to seeing the

rest of the shows w/Watson!

-K-

-----Original Message-----

From: profoxtech-bounces@leafe.com [mailto:profoxtech-bounces@leafe.com]

On Behalf Of Vincent Teachout

Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 9:21 AM

To: profoxtech@leafe.com

Subject: Re: [NF] Jeopardy and Watson

Stephen Russell wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 7:30 AM, Jerry Foote <jerryf@footegroup.com>

wrote:

>> As I understand Watson is passed a question in the form of a text

string. A

>> number of questions come to my mind.

I didn't know that. I thought it was a very impressive display of

speech recognition. As a parse and query exercise, not nearly as

imporessive.

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