If you query Google with a Jeopardy style question you won't have a valid answer as the first result, so at least for this particular application, yes it does a better job.
I'm sure there are plenty of reason to believe that this cannot be generalized to real world problem but no one here has given these reasons. So I am not really sure why people claim that it might not live up the the hype. (And I would genuinely like to understand).
Watson is trained for answering those questions ,google is not. this is why some one can pee all his urine into a small cococola bottle on the ground from upstairs while others can,t:he trained himself and practiced a lot. if you need Watson help you with other things, you need to train him again.that's why you need apps for: do the training. you will find there's nothing different with training a SAS or R program. you are still on your own. there's no help you can get from Watson
I'm sure there are plenty of reason to believe that this cannot be generalized to real world problem but no one here has given these reasons. So I am not really sure why people claim that it might not live up the the hype. (And I would genuinely like to understand).