storage of equipment in New Guinea, and many stores were stolen by soldiers, native New Guineans and 'salvage pirates' or damaged by the tropical conditions. Sales of stocks in those areas were completed at the end of 1946, often at very low prices, but much equipment was stolen. Specialised military equipment also proved difficult to dispose of given its unsuitability for civilian purposes. Bombs and other explosives were destroyed after any scrap metal was recovered and large numbers of combat aircraft had to be scrapped due to a worldwide glut. Training aircraft and other aeronautical equipment were sold to the public and other government agencies, however, and demand for tanks and Universal Carriers which could be converted to tractors was greater than expected.

The Disposals Commission's activities peaked duringhuman contestants. Since then it's slimmed down physically. Its massive servers no longer take up a whole room; Watson now runs on a single server in a cloud computing environment.

And Watson execs are no longer intent on winning quiz shows but helping customers in a range of industries succeed in their jobs. Its first use case in healthcare was with the HMO Wellpoint on claims adjudication.

Several years ago, cancer hospitals Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center began training it for use in advising oncologists on treatments. IBM is now focused on embedding access to Watson in a host of products and services.

Is there no limit to the technologies to which its cognitive-computing engine can be applied?

“I hate to sound flippant,”