ThinkGeek :: 20q - Pocket Mind Reader

The Gadget That Can Read Your Mind

Play the classic game of 20 questions with this sophisticated pocket guru. How does it work? It's rather simple. Just think of an object (either an Animal, Vegetable, Mineral or Other) and then 20q will ask you a series of questions through it's LED display. You simply answer yes, no, sometimes, or 'unknown' using the appropriate buttons on 20q for each question. Then your 20q will attempt to guess your object after the 20th question. If it guesses correctly, 20q wins! If it misses it will attempt 5 more questions and will then make another guess. If it misses again then you've officially stumped the pocket 20q and it will courageously admit defeat. But 20q is much smarter than you realize...

But, ThinkGeek, how does 20q really work?
Robin Burgener, the inventor of 20q started working on 20Q in 1988, with the game running on a 5/14 inch floppy disk. Now 20q is online and over 10,000 games are played each day - increasing the sophistication of the 20q network on a daily basis. The artificial intelligence behind the game is a neural-network, similar to a human brain. A brain, or neural-network, is built from neurons connected by synaptic connections. A human brain has about one hundred trillion (100,000,000,000,000) synaptic connections. The 20q.net online version currently has about ten million (10,000,000), and the pocket version has about two hundred and fifty thousand (250,000). The game uses the neural-network to choose the next question as well as deciding what to guess.

20q is extremely portable and great at parties. Folks will gather around it and be perplexed at just how well 20q can figure out what's on your mind. Battery and instructions for use included.

Here's an example of 20q guessing our object within 20 questions. We were thinking of a Tank.

20q: I Know Everything!

20Q: I Can Read Your Mind!

20Q: I'm Thinking....I guess you are thinking of a...TANK?