Technology

In 2011, you were chosen as one of the two humans to be play against IBM's Watson supercomputer. What was it like playing against a robot?

The local folk/rock band The Maldives have performed everywhere from the back of a flatbed truck to the stages of Sasquatch, Bumbershoot, Capitol Hill Block Party and SXSW.

The Maldives are a seven-member band that started with lead singer and guitarist Jason Dodson over six years ago, and have established themselves as a quintessential band in the Northwest music scene. Jason Dodson joins us in studio to talk and perform live.

When we think of crowd sourcing, we often think about Wikipedia or Youtube, but  Amazon's Mechanical Turk is a different type of crowd sourcing.

Mechanical Turk is an online marketplace where employers can hire thousands of workers to complete tiny tasks such as identifying objects in a photo or editing a description.  Workers are offered no benefits and are not protected by minimum wage laws. They are paid per task, often as little as 20 cents, occasionally as much as $5. But sometimes, they aren’t paid at all.

Vancouver Sun political correspondent Vaughn Palmer brings us the latest news from Canada, film critic Robert Horton looks at what's happening at the movies, and Geekwire's Todd Bishop reviews the latest in tech.

Now that Washington has approved legalized marijuana, the state faces logistical challenges regarding marijuana dispensing, including defining consumer limits and determining business regulations. Weekday spoke with consultant and Medbox CEO Dr. Bruce Bedrick who shared his advice about marijuana dispensing.

Interview has been edited for clarity.

Why does legal marijuana need different controls than alcohol?

The Boeing Co. unveiled what executives called a "proposed permanent solution to the 787 battery issue" Thursday  night. The company’s 787 fleet has been grounded for two months because of safety concerns over the plane’s lithium-ion batteries. Two batteries in the fleet’s first 50 planes have had smoke and fire incidents.

Earlier this year IBM’s supercomputer, Watson, took a job with health care company WellPoint. Watson isn’t the only robot taking our jobs. By the end of the century, an estimated 70 percent of current occupations will be replaced by automation. Digital labor will take over assembly lines, write articles and even give legal advice. Where will that leave humans? 

How is biotechnology changing our pets, our livestock and other wild things? Ross Reynolds talks with Emily Anthes, the author of "Frankenstein’s Cat: Cuddling up to Biotech’s Brave New Beasts," about how biotech will change our pets and livestock.

When Thomas Edison displayed the first lightbulbs the reaction was utter amazement. University of Tennessee history professor Ernest Freeberg talks with Ross Reynolds about how Edison’s wonder invented modern America.