GeekWire Radio: Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings on the global tribe of map nerds

Ken Jennings in the KIRO-FM Studios (Erynn Rose Photo)

Our guest on this week’s GeekWire radio show and podcast: Ken Jennings!

The Jeopardy! legend joins us in the KIRO-FM studios to talk about his latest book, “Maphead,” in which he explores the lives and culture of his fellow map geeks — in places ranging from the National Geographic Bee to the Google Earth team to those very special places on the globe known as “integer degree confluences.”

Ken also talks about last year’s widely watched Jeopardy battle with IBM’s Watson supercomputer, and what it taught him about the limitations and potential of machines.

And then comes the fun part, when we try to stump the quiz-show champ with the latest installment in our weekly “Name that Tech Tune” challenge. (At the 27:20 mark in the audio below.)

We had such a good time talking with Ken that this podcast version of the show includes a bonus segment that we couldn’t fit on the radio.

The conversation with Jennings starts around 11:20, after the weekly news segment, in which John and I discuss Amazon Prime’s new Kindle book loan program, Facebook’s Seattle expansion, and the coolest projects from this week’s TechStars Demo Day.

Listen to the full show above or directly via this MP3 file.  You can get every episode of the show using this RSS feed, or subscribe in iTunes or Zune.

Here are this week’s show notes, with links to the stories and topics we discussed.

Amazon Prime’s new killer app: Kindle books by subscription

Facebook doubling down in Seattle, moving to larger office

Zuckerberg: Jeff Bezos is one of the greats, and startups don’t need to be in the valley to win

John’s five favorite pitches from TechStars Demo Day

Ken Jennings: Details on the Maphead book. Info on Ken’s appearance this weekend in Kirkland, Wash.

App of the Week: Fast Customer

Name that Tech Tune: Listen to the sound here.

  • Warhammer

    John, here’s a solution for you to watch your Amazon Prime streaming service on your TV: I have my PC hooked up to my HDTV and use that in place of traditional TV services like cable or DirecTV. I’ve been doing this for almost two years. I use Hulu, Netflix, traditional internet web programming, etc….there is so much out there that I actually have access to more content for less cost since my internet fee is a constant whether I have traditional TV services or not.

    Get yourself an home theater-ready PC that has an HDMI hookup, and you can watch everything in high quality.

  • Warhammer

    John, here’s a solution for you to watch your Amazon Prime streaming service on your TV: I have my PC hooked up to my HDTV and use that in place of traditional TV services like cable or DirecTV. I’ve been doing this for almost two years. I use Hulu, Netflix, traditional internet web programming, etc….there is so much out there that I actually have access to more content for less cost since my internet fee is a constant whether I have traditional TV services or not.

    Get yourself an home theater-ready PC that has an HDMI hookup, and you can watch everything in high quality.