IBM’s Watson supercomputer is heading to college to study math and language

By Mariella Moon January 30, 2013

IBM Watson (Jeopardy) — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in upstate New York will soon be home to a Watson computer for three years, according to a press release from IBM. While there, RPI’s cognitive science department head, Professor Selmer Bringsjord, will work with his graduate students to add to Watson’s already vast amounts of data. After its stint with RPI, the team expects Watson to be able to process mathematical problems better, determine the meaning of made-up words faster, and be able to process videos, emails, and images from the Internet more effectively.

Bringsjord, who likens the chance to work on Watson to “a car aficionado being tossed the keys to a souped-up Lamborghini,” says his team might tweak the computer in the future to improve its ability to understand dialogues and sentence structures. The second purpose of Watson’s time with RPI is to help IBM find future potential employees, as the students slated to work on the project will end up being well-trained for big data and cognitive science jobs. The Watson computer can store 15TB of data and can be accessed by 20 users at once.

This isn’t the first time IBM has collaborated with a company or an education institution to further enhance the famed supercomputer’s abilities. Back in 2012, IBM sent a Watson computer to the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University so it could be fed tons of medical journals and research papers.

Editors' Recommendations

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Mariella loves working on both helpful and awe-inspiring science and technology stories. When she's not at her desk writing…

Mobile

The best tablets in 2024: top 11 tablets you can buy now

Disney+ app on the iPad Air 5.

As much as we love having the best smartphones in our pockets, there are times when those small screens don't cut it and we just need a larger display. That's when you turn to a tablet, which is great for being productive on the go and can be a awesome way to unwind and relax too. While the tablet market really took off after the iPad, it has grown to be quite diverse with a huge variety of products — from great budget options to powerhouses for professionals.

We've tried out a lot of tablets here at Digital Trends, from the workhorses for pros to tablets that are made for kids and even seniors -- there's a tablet for every person and every budget. For most people, though, we think Apple's iPad Air is the best overall tablet — especially if you're already invested in the Apple ecosystem. But if you're not an Apple user, that's fine too; there are plenty of other great options that you'll find in this roundup.

Computing

How to delete a file from Google Drive on desktop and mobile

Google Drive in Chrome on a MacBook.

Google Drive is an excellent cloud storage solution that can be accessed from numerous devices. Whether you do most of your Google Drive uploading or downloading from a PC, Chromebook, or mobile device, there’s going to come a time when you’ll need to delete a file (or two). Fortunately, the deletion process couldn’t be more straightforward. We’ve also put together this helpful guide to show you how to trash your Drive content a couple of different ways.

Computing

Windows 11 might nag you about AI requirements soon

Copilot on a laptop on a desk.

After recent reports of new hardware requirements for the upcoming Windows 11 24H2 update, it is evident that Microsoft is gearing up to introduce a bunch of new AI features. A new report now suggests that the company is working on adding new code to the operating system to alert users if they fail to match the minimum requirements to run AI-based applications.

According to Albacore on X (formerly known as Twitter), systems that do not meet the requirements will display a warning message in the form of a watermark. After digging into the latest Windows 11 Insider Build 26200, he came across requirements coded in the operating system for an upcoming AI File Explorer feature. The minimum requirement includes an ARM64 processor, 16GB of memory, 225GB of total storage, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite NPU.