An IBM supercomputer named Watson has won the latest battle of man versus machine.
一台名为“沃森”（Watson）的IBM超级计算机在最近的一次人机对战中获胜。

Watson won the first ever "Jeopardy!" quiz show competition starring a computer as a player. 
沃森计算机以选手身份参与《危险边缘》智力竞答节目，并首次夺得冠军。

The show was broadcast on American television February 16th. 
该节目于2月16日在美国电视上播出。

The supercomputer defeated former "Jeopardy!" champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter during the three-day competition. 
沃森是台超级计算机，在为期3天的比赛中，它击败了Jeopardy!节目前冠军肯·詹宁斯和布拉德·拉特。

The two men had been the show's most successful players until then.
这两人此前一直是该节目最成功的选手。

The IBM computer proved to be more knowledgeable in every category, including the arts, popular culture and science. 
事实证明，IBM公司研发的这台计算机在包括艺术、大众文化和自然科学在内的各个领域都比人类更为博学。

The human contestants spoke about their loss after the show.
同台竞技的人类参赛者在赛后谈到了这次失利。

"I think that we both got a taste of what it might have been like to play against us."
我觉得我们两个都体验到了一个可能会与我们竞争的东西是什么样。

Roger Norton is dean of the School of Computer Science and Mathematics at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. 
罗杰·诺顿是纽约波基普希玛利亚教会学院计算机科学和数学学院院长。

The school held a Watson watch party on the final day of the "Jeopardy!" competition. 
该学院在Jeopardy!节目最后一天比赛时举办了“观看沃森”聚会。

They compared it to a Super Bowl for the information technology industry. 
并将这次比赛视为信息技术业的超级碗大赛。

Roger Norton says everyone was amazed by Watson's performance.
罗杰·诺顿表示，所有人都为沃森的表现啧啧称奇。

"It was very impressive in a number of ways. 
它在很多方面都让人们印象深刻。

One is its ability to understand natural language."
其中之一就是它能够理解自然语言。

In "Jeopardy!" players are given information in the form of an answer. 
在Jeopardy!智力竞答中，选手们得到的信息是以答案形式给出的。

They must give an answer in the form of a question. 
而他们则必须以问题形式作答。

Roger Norton says the very nature of the game makes Watson's performance even more extraordinary.
罗杰·诺顿称这种游戏形式让沃森的表现更加出色。

"The ambiguity that's in those answers is very, very difficult for humans to understand, never mind a computer to understand. 
理解那些答案中的双关语对人类来说都非常非常困难，更别说一台计算机了。

And then to be able to take that, try to understand it, then go off and search its vast amount of data that it has and do the appropriate analytics and come up with not only an answer but also a confidence level associated with that answer – very, very impressive."
不仅要能够接受理解那些答案，然后还要搜索其海量数据库，并做适当的分析，最后给出的不仅是答案。

Watson was given the answer clues by electronic texts. 
沃森还要赋予一种跟答案相关的自信——真是太惊人了。

It then searched through some 15 trillion bytes of information stored in its database. 
沃森以电子文本的形式得到答案提示，然后它对其数据库中大约15万亿字节的信息进行搜索。

That is equal to about 200 million pages of text. 
这相当于两亿页文本。

The machine is able to perform up to 80 trillion operations per second.
沃森的运行水平可达到每秒80万亿次。

And its ability to understand language is more advanced than any other computer ever developed. 
此外，沃森理解语言的能力也超过了迄今为止开发的其它任何一台计算机。

This opens the door to a whole new world of computer applications. 
这一点为在一个全新领域内应用计算机打开了大门。

From business and investment, to medicine and healthcare, the possibilities are endless.
从商业投资到医药卫生业，电脑的应用前景无限广阔。

Watson is now going to medical school. 
沃森马上将被送往医学院。

It is part of an agreement among IBM, Columbia University Medical Center in New York City and the University of Maryland's School of Medicine. 
这是IBM公司、纽约市哥伦比亚大学医学中心和马里兰大学医学院三方协议的一部分。

The researchers will help IBM identify the best way that Watson can be used to help the healthcare industry.
那里的研究人员将帮助IBM公司鉴定一种将沃森用于医疗保健行业的最佳方式。