Joe Mandak

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – J. Keith Mularski’s world has expanded greatly since he stopped selling discount furniture to join the FBI in 1998; especially since he transferred from Washington, D.C., in 2005 to fill a vacancy in the Pittsburgh field office’s cyber squad – which he now heads. Since then, Supervisory Special Agent Mularski has been recognized as a foremost expert on cybercrime. His profile has risen even more since the Justice Department used Mularski’s sleuthing to bring two indictments with worldwide ramifications. In May, five Chinese Army intelligence officers were charged with stealing trade secrets from major manufacturers including...

PITTSBURGH — Six university students attempted to match wits with IBM’s “Jeopardy!”-playing computer Wednesday and lost badly in a mock game show. But the competition was hardly the point of a daylong symposium meant to answer an appropriate question: What is Watson? Watson is IBM’s stab at advancing artificial intelligence by creating a machine that can recognize words using complex mathematical formulas. The algorithms can deduce probable characteristics and meanings of words based on the context in which they are used and other clues. “Language is difficult for computers because they’re not human,” David Ferrucci, IBM’s lead Watson researcher...