Spammers Solving Difficult AI Problems With An Underground X Prize

from the fascinating dept

Slashdot points us to an interview with Luis von Ahn (who we're a big fan of), where he talks about how spammers who are frustrated by various types of CAPTCHA tests have set up their own sort of "innovation prize," offering up somewhere in the range of $500,000 for software that can automatically pass CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA reading tests (the things where you have to fill in a series of letters to sign up for a service or post a comment). As von Ahn points out: "If [the spammers] are really able to write a programme to read distorted text, great -- they have solved an AI problem." It is, effectively, an "X Prize" for optical character recognition. Not that we like to encourage spammers, but it is rather fascinating how the underground business seems to mirror the above ground innovation world as well.

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Too Much Free Time

by Mike Masnick

Fri, Aug 1st 2008 12:18am

Going For The Lunar X Prize? Want To Take Photos? NOAA May Require You To Get A License

from the really? dept

The Google-sponsored Lunar X Prize has received plenty of attention. Similar to the original X Prize for a privately built manned spaceship, the focus of the Lunar X Prize is to get a privately built spaceship to the moon with a robot (so, unmanned), then have that robot travel 500 meters and then send video and images back to Earth. Cool, right? Of course, you can imagine that there would be numerous permits and licenses necessary before you could just privately blast something out into space (and onto the moon). However, an anonymous reader points us to an odd one. It appears that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is warning users they may need a special license from the NOAA for any sort of remote sensor which establishes a sustained connection with Earth. In fact, some are warning that any entrant in the contest that wants to take any images of Earth needs to first get a license from the NOAA. While the NOAA points to the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992, it's not clear why it makes sense that an entrant in such a contest should need a special license just to take photos.

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Bleeding Edge

by Mike Masnick

Thu, Sep 13th 2007 10:08pm

Google Funding X Prize For Moon Landing

from the fly-me-to-the-moon dept

We've been impressed with the concept of the "X Prize" and other similar innovation-by-competition programs for many, many years. With the success of SpaceShipOne in claiming the very first X Prize (launching a man into space in a privately built rocket), the concept of prize-driven innovation has only taken off, with plenty of interest coming from private industry, looking to foster innovation in specific areas. Apparently, Google has decided to join the party -- though not in its core field of interest. It's no secret that Google's co-founders are quite interested in space and space exploration, so it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that Google is putting up the money for a new X Prize for sending a robot to the moon. The robot is required to do certain things once it reaches the moon in order to claim the prize. Google is doing this through the same group that ran the original X Prize, rather than doing it entirely separately, but it's no surprise that having Google's name attached to the prize will help generate even more interest in the program. Still, it'll be interesting if we start seeing a lot more private interest in creating and funding these types of prizes. It's likely that many of them, like Netflix's, will be quite specific to what the company is working on -- but the possibilities for companies with some extra money to burn to fund some pretty far out research could lead to some really fascinating contests.

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Spammers Solving Difficult AI Problems With An Underground X Prize

from the fascinating dept

Going For The Lunar X Prize? Want To Take Photos? NOAA May Require You To Get A License

from the really? dept

Google Funding X Prize For Moon Landing

from the fly-me-to-the-moon dept

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