IBM's "Watson" supercomputer left its human counterparts in the dust after the first two rounds of Jeopardy this week. Jeopardy champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter finished the contest's second evening with $4,800 and $10,400 respectively, while Watson had racked up $35,734. But it's not all about fun and games, the computer with 13.64 terabytes of memory is said to display important steps forward in artificial intelligence, which could have practical applications in the fields of healthcare, climatology and agriculture.

Watson is an effort on IBM's part to showcase advances in AI and natural language processing, reports Computerworld's Sharon Gaudin. The machine was programmed to be able to analyze idiosyncrasies in human speech. The ability to communicate with a computer in a conversational style is viewed by some experts as a breakthrough that will spur a major shift in computing.

As for practical applications, the technology behind Watson could find itself in the healthcare field, reports William Weir at the Hartford Courant. IBM is touting it as a way for doctors to analyze huge volumes of data and reduce errors in diagnostics and prescriptions. It could also help doctors detect problems via blood tests, or identify potential red flags in MRI tests, the company has said.

Other fields ripe for Watson's technology are climatology and agriculture, according to IBM's InfoBoom blog. If computers are able to deliver solid answers to questions, rather than delivering a list of possible answers or sources, the search engine as we know it could become obsolete.

Take note, though, that when it comes to questions about geography, Watson is far from perfect. In one of the computer's missed question, it evidently "thought" that Toronto was a U.S. city.

For more:
- see Sharon Gaudin's article at Computerworld
- see William Weir's article at the Hartford Courant
- see IBM's InfoBoom blog post

Related Articles:
Advances and applications in artificial intelligence
DARPA plans exascale supercomputer