A convent turned hotel, Caribou Coffee, and progressive coworking space called The Coven--plus more things to see and do while on a business trip to Minneapolis and St. Paul. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Minnesota is the birthplace of the supercomputer, developed for code cracking during World War II. Tech giants of their day, including Cray Research and Control Data Corporation, were based in the Twin Cities.

IBM's Watson computer marched into pop-culture history last year by outscoring two former "Jeopardy!" Now, the Minnesota-made computer system is moving into real-world business applications, and the state's health care industry is looking for ways to tap in. Named after Thomas J. Watson Sr., the influential early leader of IBM, Watson is an artificial intelligence computer system whose brainpower comes from multiple computers that are engineered and manufactured at the IBM facility in Rochester. With a souped-up processing system that can ingest reams of data, analyze it and spit out results in the blink of an eye, IBM officials believe that turning Watson's brainpower onto the medical system can reduce errors and improve the quality of care. Watson is much more than a search engine with access to encyclopedic amounts information.