Feds Lift Ban on IBM Contracts

Jeopardy ! king discusses his epic battle with the computer

(NEWSER) - Going into his Jeopardy! match against IBM’s Watson supercomputer, champ Ken Jennings saw himself as humanity’s representative, "the Great Carbon-Based Hope against a new generation of thinking machines," he writes for Slate . But victory wasn’t to be: Watson played Jeopardy much like a top-ranked human. (Quipped Jennings: "It's very smart, very fast, speaks in an uneven monotone, and has never known the touch of a woman.") But, Jennings writes, "unlike us, Watson cannot be intimidated.” More»

Face-off airs tonight with Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter

(NEWSER) - Tonight, IBM’s Watson computer will go head-to-head with Jeopardy legends Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in the first of three matches. Do they stand a chance against the machine? Definitely, writes Greg Lindsay for Fast Company . He’s an actual human who’s beaten the computer three times, thanks in part to smart use of Daily Doubles. He found that Watson had some advantages (in terms of the buzzer, it was consistent; "buzz too early, you see, and you’re locked out for a split second") but categories with "semantic difficulty" gave Lindsay the upper hand. "Sure enough, Watson was bewildered by clues such as 'X marks the spot, man, when this guy opens his peeper' ('What is cyclops?')." More»

Senate aspirant no stranger to pay-to-play politics

(NEWSER) - Senate Democrats are lauding Roland Burris as a faithful public servant who happens to owe his appointment to a crooked governor, but the Illinois politician has some pretty close—perhaps suspect—ties to Blagojevich, the Chicago Tribune reports. Burris and affiliates in his lobbying firm contributed $20,000 to Blagojevich campaigns, he's hosted fundraisers, and the governor's wife was hired in September by a firm with close ties to Burris' lobbying partner, CNN adds. More»

A look at milestones in the life of that crucial computer accessory

(NEWSER) - It’s been 40 years since the computer mouse made its public debut, and though innovations have been legion, the basic concept is still the same. Macworld takes a look back at some key moments in the device’s evolution.

• 1963: The first recognizable mouse prototype is built. It only had one button, but more were to come—well, not for Mac users.

Before the iMac, there were mega machines

(NEWSER) - Convenience is a given when it comes to today's PCs, but the machine you're reading this on has come a long way. Major transformations date as far back as the early 19th century. Live Science gives the back-story on 10 revolutionary computers.

1. The Difference Engine, 1822: Designed by Charles Babbage but not built until decades later, today's replicas show this math-table-generating machine to work flawlessly.
2. ENIAC, 1946: This US Army computer weighed 30 tons, used 17,478 vacuum tubes, and consumed 150 kilowatts.