This episode is presented by eBay.

Rob, everyone loves a deal and a bargain from time to time, don't they? Absolutely, mate. And you know where you can grab a great deal? Talk to me. Where? The eBay app. Yes, you are correct. You didn't need to talk to me. I already knew it. I love eBay. When you're buying, you can discover loads of hidden gems. there's so many items where you think I would have never found that anywhere else.

Then when you're buying, you can discover loads of hidden gems. There's so many items where you think I would have never found that anywhere else. Then when you're selling, it's so simple and most

importantly, free. It's free, Rob. When it's this easy to sell for free and there's great deals

on things you love. You can't help but say when it's eBay. It excludes vehicles and business

sellers.

Welcome to Science Talk, the more or less weekly podcast of Scientific American posted on January 14th, 2011. I'm Steve Murski. On this episode, we'll hear from Scientific American.com's

Larry Greenmire, with some big electric car news from the recent consumer electronics show in Las Vegas.

But first, our Michael Moyer spent part of January 13th at a first-of-its-kind event.

I spoke to him by phone shortly after he got back.

Michael, you were at a fascinating event just earlier today.

Why don't you tell us all about it?

That's right.

I went up today a little bit up into upstate New York to IBM's research facility there,

where they had a preview of the Watson Jeopardy Challenge.

And what that is is Watson is a computer,

it's really a software setup that IBM scientists have been working on for four years now,

which has the purpose and intention of, at least in the immediate future,

of winning Jeopardy.

And unlike chess, as you can recall, you know, IBM created deep blue a number of years ago

that eventually beat the world champion Gary Kasparov and chess.

Jeopardy is a much more difficult problem than chess.

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