How IBM Is Building A Business Around WatsonTrue Viral News

In 2004, Charles Lickel was eating in a dinner with some colleagues when he noticed that all of the patrons were rushing to the bar. Curious, he followed them to see what all the commotion was about. As it turned out, they were going to see Ken Jennings' historic six-month run on the game show, Jeopardy! Paul Horn, then director of IBM Research, had been bugging Lickel to come up with an idea for the company's next "grand challenge," Big Blue's tradition of tackling incredibly tough problems just to see if they can be solved. The last one drew wide attention when the firm's Deep Blue computer beat Garry Kasparov at chess in 1996.