Hasta La Gadget!

Look, if you buy a carrier-branded Android handset, you should know good and well that you may never see the first Android update. It ain’t easy to hear, but as mama always said, the truth ain’t always painless. That said, there’s still some research you should do before picking a phone and carrier, and ComputerWorld has seemingly done just that for you. The methodology is all explained down in the source link, but the long and short of it is this: in the last half of 2010, Verizon upgraded 33 percent of its sub-2.2 phones to Froyo, while Sprint updated just 28.6 percent of its stable and T-Mobile blessed only 12.5 percent of its phones with the new digs. AT&T bashers should take note, as Ma Bell didn’t update a single one of its nine Android phones during the June-December 2010 time period. Yeah, ouch. Over on the handset side, we’ve got HTC gifting half of its devices with Froyo, while Motorola comes in second with 15.4 percent and Samsung third with 11.1 percent. No matter how you slice it, it’s a depressing study to look at, and it probably makes your decision to skip over a Nexus One seem all the more idiotic in retrospect. But hey, at least there’s the Nexus S to console you… if you’re willing to sign up with T-Mob, that is.

Study: Verizon Wireless and HTC most eager to provide Android 2.2 updates originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s man vs. the machine.Yes, we’ve been talking about this since June, but the time is nigh. Computers are going to take over the world Jeopardy. As we mentioned again in December, IBM’s supercomputer, named Watson, will take on other real human contestants in everyone’s favorite game-show, “Jeopardy.” The show is set to air in February, and the tapings will begin tomorrow.

 Watson will be competing with trivia-masters Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. IBM and Jeopardy gave us a sneak peak today of the three contestants whipping through three categories in no time at all. Every question was answered correctly, but guess who came out on top at the end of the round? That’s right, it was Watson.

According to Wired,

“The system is powered by 10 racks of IBM POWER 750 servers running Linux, and uses 15 terabytes of RAM, 2,880 processor cores and can operate at 80 teraflops. Watson scans the 2 million pages of content in its ‘brain’ in less than three seconds. The system is not connected to the internet, but totally self-contained. The machine is the size of 10 refrigerators.”

So, will Watson reign supreme in the real showdown? Tune in to find out.

[Photo Credit: Wired]

So, in February IBM’s Watson will be in an official Jeopardy tournament-style competition with titans of trivia Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. That competition will be taped starting tomorrow, but hopefully we’ll get to know if a computer really can take down the greatest Jeopardy players of all time in “real time” as the show airs. It will be a historic event on par with Deep Blue vs. Garry Kasparov, and we’ll absolutely be glued to our seats. Today IBM and Jeopardy offered a quick teaser of that match, with the three contestants knocking out three categories at lightning speed. Not a single question was answered wrongly, and at the end of the match Watson, who answers questions with a cold computer voice, telegraphing his certainty with simple color changes on his “avatar,” was ahead with $4,400, Ken had $3,400, and Brad had $1,200.

Alright, a “win” for silicon for now, but without any Double Jeopardy or Final Jeopardy it’s hard to tell how well Watson will do in a real match. What’s clear is that he isn’t dumb, and it seems like the best chance the humans will have will be buzzing in before Watson can run through his roughly three second decision process and activate his buzzer mechanically. An extra plus for the audience is a graphic that shows the three answers Watson has rated as most likely to be correct, and how certain he is of the answer he selects — we don’t know if that will make it into the actual TV version, but we certainly hope so. It’s always nice to know the thought processes of your destroyer. Stand by for video of the match, along with an interview with David Gondek, an engineer on the project.

Update: Video of the match is up, check it out after the break!

Update 2: And we have the interview as well, along with a bit more on how Watson actually works.

Continue reading IBM’s Watson supercomputer destroys all humans in Jeopardy practice round (video!)

IBM’s Watson supercomputer destroys all humans in Jeopardy practice round (video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last night Boxee users apparently noticed they were unable to stream YouTube videos via their app or Boxes as noted above by TheNewTVRepublic, leading to some speculation that we were seeing a repeat of licensing related blocking that once shut down access on Popcorn Hour hardware. Fortunately that’s not the case, as the official YouTube account just tweeted out a notice that it’s only a glitch which it is working to address “quickly.” We’ll return to DEFCON level 4 pending an actual fix, but until then the latest series of Vote 4 Bieber My YouTube entries will just have to wait.

Update: And just that fast things are apparently working again. Return to your normal schedules citizens — nothing to see here.

YouTube streams are down on Boxee, but not blocked – Update: fixed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Still wondering if the future of display linkage really lies in DisplayPort? Hard to say for sure, but IDT’s definitely making a good case for it with its latest demonstration. Integrated Device Technology has seemingly figured out how to shuffle touch information through DisplayPort’s existing auxiliary channel, which simplifies and lowers the cost of integrating touch technology into tablets, laptops, AIO PCs, monitors, etc. It’s being hailed as the world’s first usage of the DisplayPort AUX channel to carry touch screen data, and if the prototype proves solid, it’ll allow laptop manufacturers to eliminate USB interface communication from host to panel and reduce the number of wires that must pass through the display’s hinge. And you know what that means — slimmer, more flexible designs. IDT’s not barking about a release date for its latest trick, but we’re guessing it’ll have display makers begging for access in no time flat.

Continue reading IDT transmit touch information over DisplayPort’s auxiliary channel

IDT transmit touch information over DisplayPort’s auxiliary channel originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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