Next up: Humans, systems team in cognitive computing

When Kenneth Wayne Jennings, noted for holding the record for the longest winning streak of 74 games on the U.S. syndicated game show, bowed to IBM's Watson as the new "Jeopardy!" That was probably one small step for a computer but a giant leap for computing. It's ironic to say that Watson's dominance on the game show didn't come out of the blue. The result was a culmination of over a decade of IBM's research. "It opened up a new chapter in information technology called cognitive computing--based on the idea of a natural interaction between systems and people," says Zachary (Zach) Lemnios, vice president of strategy for IBM Research.