NY Times Op-Ed piece: "What is Artificial Intelligence?"

Powers has a piece in today's NY Times on the upcoming match between Watson, the computerized Jeopardy player, vs. two real-world Jeopardy champions. Echoes of Galatea 2.2!

The Bell Jar in light of The Echo Maker

A thoughtful essay considering Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar in the context of a reading of Powers's The Echo Maker, on the Tasty Spoonful blog.

An excerpt:

This kind of consideration becomes richer when The Bell Jar is considered in conversation with Richard Powers’s incredibly beautiful book The Echo Maker. Powers’s novel won the National Book Award in 2006, in part because of his masterful expansion of a question that I think lies at the heart of The Bell Jar. His novel offers a very contemporary picture of how mind works within the context of current neuroscience, but also forces us to determine how–in light of such advances–Esther’s description of psychological and physical life as dichotomous might continue to lend us an understanding of ourselves.

Powers mention in an odd place

Fun mention of Powers in an article on the big consumer electronic show:

For me, the convention’s best offering was somewhat of a throwback. It was Sharp Electronics’ i3 Wall, a 5-walled room filled with edge-to-edge HDTVs on every surface. It was the living incarnation of Richard Powers’ Plowing The Dark, and it was gorgeous. Walk up to the room, suspend your disbelief, and you’ll feel like you’re flying over the countryside (assuming Sharp is playing the countryside graphic).

Course Wiki on Powers

A very cool thing!

The course being taught this semester at the Rochester Institute of Technology, "Richard Powers: Literature, Philosophy, Innovation," has a wiki containing course topics, notes, and other material. Take a look--click the title link of this post to see it.

Powers Selects Charles Yu for "5 Under 35"

Charles Yu's novel, How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is reviewed in "Scotland on Sunday." Reviewer Stuart Kelly says

Yu's novel is his first, and after a publishing some short stories he was chosen for the "5 Under 35" programme, where former winners of the National Book Award selected one young writer whose work impressed them (Yu was, incidentally, the choice of the underrated Richard Powers).

New Powers Story in the New Yorker

Powers has published a short story, "To the Measures Fall," in the October 18, 2010 issue of "The New Yorker." It's his first in the magazine since February 1988, when an excerpt from the upcoming Prisoner's Dilemma made it into the august pages.

Rick Moody on Richard Powers

Author Rick Moody's piece in today's Louisville Courier-Journal, citing his lifelong and current literary influences has this line about Powers:

Richard Powers, because he always tries something new, in every book, and because he is unafraid to be entirely brilliant.