I'll take publicity stunts for a thousand, Alex:
That's a relief, because I bet a lot of people were expecting it to look like the computer "maid" on The Jetsons, who was named Rosie, and wasn't a computer but a robot, and certainly doesn't deserve scare quotes, as if she wasn't a real maid. More of a housekeeper, but maid will do.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this works. Much of Jeopardy! strategy is in the clicker-finger reflexes. You could simply program Watson to click .01 nanoseconds after the question is asked, and he'd be the first to ring in every time. But how does it understand the questions? Are they typed or spoken? Chess is one thing, but this sort of spatial, intuitive thought is beyond modern computers. This year, anyway.
