Skip to main content

Jeopardy champion won game show with… a web app?!

You may have already seen some of the highlights from Roger Craig’s record-breaking run on Jeopardy, in which he went $9k to $36k in the span of two questions (watch the video below) and surpassed previous record-holder Ken Jennings’ single-game winnings. During his run on the show, he won every game taped over a week, and made it to show’s most recent Tournament of Champions.

And he did it all with the help of a web app he created.

Recommended Videos

Yes, you read that correctly. A computer scientist with a Ph.D. from the University of Delaware, Craig built an app that used an archive of past Jeopardy questions to help identify show trends and the strengths and weaknesses of his own knowledge base.

In August, Craig gave a talk at the New York “Quantified Self Show & Tell” conference in which he described the app he created. In his speech, he notes that the app revealed a number of interesting trends in the show’s use of questions. For example, questions with the highest value typically come from certain academic fields (like science or architecture), while low-value questions usually come from topics like food or more mainstream subject matter. With the app, he was able to identify specific academic and mainstream topics he needed to study more (like fashion).

While some might be tempted to keep such a secret to success to themselves, Craig tested his app with several friends who went on the show, and they had a similar — though not record-breaking — level of success.

Craig now hopes to create an iPhone app that will allow users to study in a similar fashion.

You can watch the video of Craig going from $9k to $36k in two questions below, and the video of his talk at the New York conference underneath that clip:

Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
Waymo, Nexar present AI-based study to protect ‘vulnerable’ road users
waymo data vulnerable road users ml still  1 ea18c3

Robotaxi operator Waymo says its partnership with Nexar, a machine-learning tech firm dedicated to improving road safety, has yielded the largest dataset of its kind in the U.S., which will help inform the driving of its own automated vehicles.

As part of its latest research with Nexar, Waymo has reconstructed hundreds of crashes involving what it calls ‘vulnerable road users’ (VRUs), such as pedestrians walking through crosswalks, biyclists in city streets, or high-speed motorcycle riders on highways.

Read more
Rivian, VW venture kicks off next-gen platform for R1, Scout EVs
Rivian R2, R3, and R3X

The big challenge for Rivian, the EV maker known for its innovative electric and software systems, has long been how to reach the next stage of growth.

That stage came within reach in June, when the California-based company and Volkswagen announced a joint venture involving a $5 billion injection from the German automaker.

Read more
Hyundai teases Ioniq 9 electric SUV’s interior ahead of expected launch
hyundai ioniq 9 teaser launch 63892 image1hyundaimotorpresentsfirstlookationiq9embarkingonaneweraofspaciousevdesign

The Ioniq 9, the much anticipated three-row, electric SUV from Hyundai, will be officially unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show next week.

Selected by Newsweek as one of America’s most anticipated new vehicles of 2025, the Ioniq 9 recently had its name changed from the Ioniq 7, which would have numerically followed the popular Ioniq 6, to signal the SUV as Hyundai’s new flagship EV model.

Read more