If We Just Technobabble the Technobabble...

  Suspension of disbelief is an important and powerful thing to have to enjoy certain movies or TV shows. Crazy physics or wonky engineering don't bother me terribly much. Techonobabble, as popularized by Star Trek and seen almost every nowadays, can be an effective means to solve some crazy situation with equally crazy actions with logic that is so impenetrable that it sounds legitimate. However, when I notice these things in my field of study and interest my suspension of disbelief often goes right out the window.
  This isn't the 1980s anymore, the computer is not some black magic box that is both unknowable in its workings yet so simple a few key presses can do seemingly anything. Why do movies and television shows continue to treat it like such like such an abstract concept? It seems like they don't want to alienate those with limited computer knowledge by remaining safely within the confines set by old technology such as text displays or nonexistent mouse use, people slam on the keyboard and stuff gets done. This is what I see and feel when this happens.

Uploading a computer virus to the alien mothership in Independence Day

  Near the end of Independence Day, Jeff Goldblum's character uploads a virus from his Mac to the alien ship, crippling its defenses. Overlooking the fact that they used the printer serial port to somehow wirelessly upload the virus to the ship, the sheer headache that would be needed to fix all compatibility issues (language, platform, endian, would it even use bits?, etc.) between the two systems would be astronomical yet is created and implemented quickly. Fired up and sent (with the uploading virus bar) just in time to save the day.

  I guess calling out CSI for taking liberties with technology is a bit old hat but the sheer hamfistedness of this clip astounds me. The same thing happens with cybercrime committed on TV or in movies, be it War Games, Hackers, or Firewall; throw together a few technical sounding terms to the point it sounds menacing or helpful, you have your story or solution. Also, I wish we had the technology to turn a blurry six pixel image of a face into a high definition portrait.
  I'm guessing why bad computer technology bothers me so much is because I'm so close to the subject. If I were an engineer or a physicist other parts of television would bother me more than goofy computer lingo strung together.

Man vs Machine: Watson Aftermath

  If your were one of the twelve million viewers last month watching IBM's supercomputer Watson competing on Jeopardy! against champions Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings, you saw a rather dominating performance from Watson. Watson finished the first game at $35734 and completed the three day, two game championship with a total of $77147 with Ken Jennings finishing second at $24000 and Brad Rutter with $21600. IBM claimed the million dollar prize for the championship, donating the money to charities World Vision and World Community Grid. Jennings took home $300000, donating half to VillageReach, and Rutter claimed the $200000 prize, donating half to the Lancaster County Community Foundation.

Ken Jennings finishing off Final Jeopardy with a bit of humor

 
  Watson lead a commanding performance through most of the games. Watson would only buzz in when it had a confidence level above a certain threshold but its buzz was lightning fast. The only times Jennings or Rutter were able to chime in were either when Watson had low confidence in its answer or when Rutter or Jennings anticipated the buzz and beat Watson to the punch. Watson also played very logically, if a bit bizarrely to human strategies. It would hop around the board searching for the Daily Doubles and when it found them it would bet very precise amounts based off of the current state of the game, wagering $6435 on an earlier Daily Double and $17973 on the Final Jeopardy on the third day.
  Not all of Watson's performance was perfect. Watson couldn't "hear" what the other contestants buzzed in with, if Ken or Brad rang in first and answered incorrectly, Watson would sometimes buzz in and give the same answer. At the end of the first game, I'm sure much to the chagrin of its creators, Watson's answer of "What is Toronto?????" to the Final Jeopardy category "U.S. Cities" was a bit off the mark. The presence of the five question marks displayed a very uncertain answer from Watson. The IBM creators said they didn't give much weight of choosing answers to the category title because Jeopardy! writers would often use jokes or puns in the titles. Unfortunately for Watson's human competitors, it wagered only $947 of its $36681 current first day total, not giving an ounce of respite for the challengers. For those interested, here is the answer that stumped Watson:

"This U.S. city's largest airport is named for a famous World War II hero, its second largest for a famous World War II battle."

  Overall, I was incredibly impressed by IBM's showing on Jeopardy! Watson showed a depth and understand of the human language that could have a great number of implications. Being able to parse a question and delve through terabytes of information and return an answer in a few seconds is a critical step towards an era of intelligent, helpful computers. IBM wanted to show off what they could do, and show they did.

Man vs. Machine: Computer to play on Jeopardy!

  Starting on February 14th, Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter, and Watson will be playing a three day tournament with a million dollars on the line. Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter are the two top players of Jeopardy! fame, Jennings having the longest winning streak on the show and Rutter being the largest money winner after winning the Ultimate Tournament of Champions. But who is Watson? Not Sherlock Holmes' Dr. Watson, no, Watson is a supercomputer created by IBM.
  Watson is an advanced artificial intelligence designed to answer questions in a very human, very natural context. Using a complex system of algorithms to process natural language, hold, search, and retrieve terabytes of information, Watson can determine the answer to almost any question in a few short seconds. Outfitted with a buzzer, Watson is set to challenge Jennings and Rutter to an intense mind vs machine match on Jeopardy!

Ken, Watson, and Brad during a practice match on January 13th, 2011.