IBM Supercomputer WATSON Will Take On Jeopardy Champs.

Watson, a supercomputer named for IBM founder Thomas Watson, will take on two human champions of the long-running Jeopardy! television quiz show in two games over three days next week, starting from February 14th, the Valentine day. Watson, An IBM Power7 computer, a work-load optimized system that can answer questions posed in natural language over a nearly unlimited range of knowledge. Watson, which is not connected to the Internet, plays the game by crunching through multiple algorithms at dizzying speed and attaching a percentage score to what it believes is the correct response.

Like Kasparov, who lost a six-game match to IBM's "Deep Blue" in 1997, Ken Jennings, who holds the Jeopardy! record of 74 straight wins, and Brad Rutter, winner of $3.25 million on the show, are expected to have their hands full.

In a practice match at IBM Research headquarters in upstate New York last month, Watson came out on top in terms of prize money, although the computer and the two human contestants correctly answered all of the 15 questions.

Jeopardy!, which first aired on US television in 1964, tests a player's knowledge of trivia in a range of categories, from geography to politics to history to sports and entertainment.

In a twist on traditional game play, contestants are provided with answers and need to supply the questions.

During the practice match, for example, one of the clues was: "The film Gigi gave him his signature song 'Thank Heaven for Little Girls.'"

Watson, represented by a large computer monitor, sounded the buzzer a split second ahead of Jennings and Rutter and answered correctly in its artificial voice "Who is Maurice Chevalier?"

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