Elementary, My Dear Watson

In early 2011, IBM debuted its new robot, Watson. Named for the first president of the company, Thomas J. Watson. The robot, which has a lightning quick response time, was tested during a round of Jeopardy (see above video). Competing against the likes of Ken Jennings, the longest running champion of Jeopardy in history, Watson quickly left its competitors in the dust. The robot also competed against Brad Rutlet, who holds the record for the largest amount of money won on the game show.

Watson has more than 200 million pages of information stored on its internal disk. After the game show aired, there were over 134 million comments on the official IBM YouTube video. During the program, Watson did not have access to the internet. The robot received texts of the questions as the host was reading them to the other contestants. Watson has also competed against members of the House of Representatives in Jeopardy!, and had a higher score than its five competitors combined.

IBM plans to use Watson for healthcare purposes. Columbia University and the University of Maryland are currently working on discovering areas of patient diagnosis where Watson could be of use. Watson's software currently sells for $1 million. The price is expected to go down as technological advances continue.