Don’t Forget Jeopardy! Tonight: See Future iPhone Tech In Action

By

20Computer-span-articleLarge-v2

At the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported an intriguiging detail about the upcoming iPhone nano: the new iPhone would feature “voice-based navigation.” (It will also be streaming-only, according to our report).

Could this be true system-wide voice control, as programming legend Bill Atkinson predicted at Macworld?

As we previously reported, Atkinson said it’s clear that iPhones would one day be controlled by voice, but he predicted the development to be several years away — two to ten years, he said.

But Atkinson reminded us we can get a sneak peek at the technology if we tune into Jeopardy! tonight. The history-making show features IBM’s DeepQA Project Watson supercomputer versus previous champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

It’s likely to be a first public demonstration of the kind of natural-language and real-world knowledge technology to make it work.

“When we see computers interacting with a natural language interface, people are going to want it,” Atkinson said.

“I’d ask you all to watch Jeopardy on February 14,” he said. “It may be a momentous occasion.”

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.