> For example, if the Raptors were measuring college basketball prospects, Watson could quickly crunch the numbers and display a comparison of their stats on shooting, assists, and rebounds. Compare that to drafts of past years, in which the Raptors would use whiteboards with player stats printed on magnets, and call up statisticians each time they wanted new information, recalled Lenchner, who visited the Raptors’ headquarters while IBM was developing the software. In the days before Watson, the whole process was much more laborious and time consuming.
I like Watson and it's not their fault for getting publicity...but as for the reporter, c'mon, there's no way you could write that above paragraph without being ignorant of computers pre-Macintosh (or iPod) days. Perhaps the Raptors are old-fashioned but computers have been used for exponentially reducing laborious and time-consuming activities since the dawn of the airlines for solving scheduling problems. And that was much later than the era of computing used for early censuses and cryptoanalysis during the World Wars. But if you've grown up in the "there's an app for that!" age, I guess it's easy to forget how infinite the use cases for computers.
I like Watson and it's not their fault for getting publicity...but as for the reporter, c'mon, there's no way you could write that above paragraph without being ignorant of computers pre-Macintosh (or iPod) days. Perhaps the Raptors are old-fashioned but computers have been used for exponentially reducing laborious and time-consuming activities since the dawn of the airlines for solving scheduling problems. And that was much later than the era of computing used for early censuses and cryptoanalysis during the World Wars. But if you've grown up in the "there's an app for that!" age, I guess it's easy to forget how infinite the use cases for computers.