Microsoft's new brainiac front man
"Jeopardy" king Ken Jennings has landed a new gig.
Answer: "Jeopardy" king Ken Jennings' new gig.
Question: What is Encarta's new spokesman?
Jennings, a 30-year-old software engineer from Salt Lake City, garnered a huge following after a 74-game winning streak on the knowledge-testing TV game show. The streak, which ended last month, netted Jennings more than $2.5 million in winnings, free tax services from H&R Block and now a new job with Microsoft.
The software company said Monday that as its encyclopedia product's spokesman, Jennings would be featured in a "Quiz the Whiz" game through Encarta Reference Library Premium 2005 that challenges users to stump him.
In a question-and-answer piece on Microsoft's site, Jennings, a member of the National Association of Quiz Tournaments, said he does use the Internet as a resource but cautioned that "the scary thing is, you never know what's out there or whether the answer you will find will be accurate."
"In fact, out of curiosity, I searched for myself once and turned up all sorts of erroneous information. One seemingly reputable and authoritative page even had my name wrong," he said.
Apparently, that page belonged to Microsoft; Jennings was until Monday (after this posting) identified throughout a Microsoft PressPass interview as "Jenkins."