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Thursday, February 17, 2011
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IBM’s Watson Defeats Humans in Jeopardy! Battle
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by Erik Arnold
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IBM's supercomputer named Watson completed its conquest for Jeopardy! domination by defeating two of the best contestants on Earth: Ken Jennings, the longest consecutive winner in Jeopardy history, and Brad Rutter, the all-time earnings leader. Time will tell if the Jeopardy! victory is a Truman/Dewey moment. The Jeopardy! competition was a total score over two games (aired in three episodes Feb. 14-16), with the highest total score at the end of the two games claiming victory. Watson won the $1 million prize, and it was not even close until the last round when Ken Jennings seemed determined to put in a good showing for humans before bowing out by writing "it's time to welcome our new artificial intelligence overlords" on his Final Jeopardy question. This delighted the IBM heavy studio audience.
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Springer eBooks Now Available in the Google eBookstore
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Springer ebooks are now available in the Google eBookstore. Google currently holds the largest collection of Springer ebooks with more than 52,000, which is a combination of physically scanned books published prior to 2006 and PDF file submissions since 2006. Springer adds 4,000 newly published titles per year. This service will initially only be available for international customers. A platform for the German-speaking markets will follow in due course.
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ScienceCinema Offers Searchable Videos from U.S. DOE
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Scientific videos highlighting the most exciting research and development sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are now available through ScienceCinema. The multimedia search tool was launched Feb. 8 as part of a 1-day workshop, "Multimedia and Visualization Innovations for Science," jointly hosted by Microsoft and the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI), held in Redmond, Wash.
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Apple Launches Subscriptions on the App Store
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Apple, Inc. announced a new subscription service available to all publishers of content-based apps on the App Store, including magazines, newspapers, video, music, and more. This is the same digital subscription billing service that Apple recently launched with News Corp.'s The Daily app.
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Update on Gale—Mobile, Global, and In Context
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by Paula J. Hane
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At the recent ALA Midwinter meeting, I caught up with Nader Qaimari, senior vice president of marketing at Cengage Learning, to talk about recent developments at Gale and get a peek at some forthcoming products. Gale continues to be excited about the streamlined company structure implemented last summer—the integration of Gale and Cengage. Qaimari says it lets the company make content connections and help libraries serve as the conduit to information and textbooks. Other news he was eager to discuss included the company's mobile initiatives, its new Gale World Scholar product line, enhancements to PowerSearch, new administrative tools, and ongoing work on the In Context products.
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If you regularly read blogs, add these to your reader:
ITI Books Blog – booksblog.infotoday.com – news, observations, and commentary from the authors, editors, and publishers of Information Today, Inc.'s many book offerings.
ITI Conference Blog – libconf.com – covering ITI's library conferences worldwide.
Library Stuff – librarystuff.net – the library blog dedicated to resources for keeping current and professional development, written by Steven M. Cohen.
InfoToday Europe Blog – infotodayeurope.com – The latest news, analysis and opinion on the information industry in Europe and the UK.
Business of Video blog – blog.streamingmedia.com – Daily posts about the online video industry, business trends and analysis, market data, and research as well as the online video business models in the media and entertainment, broadcast, publishing, advertising and enterprise industries.
destinationCRM Blog – destinationcrmblog.com – a blog from the editors of CRM magazine, dedicated to providing Customer Relationship Management information in a timely manner to connect decision makers and providers.
SpeechTech Blog – speechtechblog.com – updates on speech technology and its applications in daily life. Covers everything from ASR to VUI, with lots of links, threads, and even a few pictures thrown in for good measure.
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Paula Hane's New Chapter
Effective June 1, Paula J. Hane is giving up her assignment as News Bureau Chief at Information Today, Inc. (ITI), where she was engaged to provide editorial direction to the ITI NewsBreaks service hosted on infotoday.com. She also wrote for Information Today and the Cyberskeptic’s Guide to Internet Research. She has been associated with the company for 16½ years and was previously the Editor of Database magazine for Online, Inc. She will continue to accept freelance editorial and writing assignments.
The responsibility for producing news commentaries and in-depth analyses for the infotoday.com website will be integrated into the workflow of the Information Today newspaper, with Barbara Brynko as Editor-in-Chief/Editorial Director. Assisting Barbara will be Brandi Scardilli as Managing Editor.
Vendors should continue to send information industry and product news items to Information Today: Barbara Brynko (Editor-in-Chief/Editorial Director) at bbrynko@infotoday.com. Library technology news should continue to be sent to Computers in Libraries magazine at cilnews@infotoday.com. As always, freelance writers are encouraged to submit story ideas directly to the editors.
We wish Paula success in her new ventures and thank her for her many years of great work as News Bureau Chief at ITI. Paula can be reached at paulajeanhane@gmail.com.
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