Intuition for play and purpose

Luis Von Ahn, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University is putting the collective intelligence of internet users to good use, and he's doing it in a resonant way: games. Von Ahn devised two easy online games, The ESP Game and Phetch that put active users together in an internet version of charades. One person sees a photo and tries to give clues for the others to go out and find it.

Through these games, Von Ahn is giving people a fun way to solve a problem that cannot be solved by computers yet, called "human computation." The trick of these games is that descriptions for every image are logged--and stored as tags. The ESP site claims that every image on the web could be tagged in a matter of weeks should the game be played as much as other popular online games. And he very well could be on to something. During a speech at Google, Von Ahn pointed out the unharnessed potential of people playing games online....

The Launch of 'One Laptop Per Child'

Happy to see this article yesterday in MarketingVox announcing that this project will finally start mass production in October of this year. Made by Quanta Computers of Taiwan, the computers are kid friendly to the fullest-- sunlight readable, a pull chord to recharge, built in wireless...

An incredible idea and even more incredible that government red tape and bureaucratic bullshit did not hinder this til the end of time. Though my worry is that somewhere along the chain that may still be the case, and we'll see this drag on...

But that brings and interesting opportunity for Quanta. I don't know how profitable these computers can be for them, but the PR exposure and benefit to our global society they are providing are an incredible incentive for this company to push this thing through with whatever they have.

And for all of us it's a chance to connect with kids that have largely been ignored and kept out of sight from most developed nations because it's easy to put the problems of people "over there" out of mind. How cool is it that we may be, hopefully sooner than later, able to hear their voices, understand their view on the world, listen to their opinions, learn about their life. Those who have the most reason to feel rejected by the world will now have the chance to let us all know what they think. Amazing that even 10 years ago this was a relative impossibility.

Call me an optimist when it comes to this project, but with every good sign of progress I'll continue to keep my hopes up, because if it pans out I think it will be a great step forward for all of us.

Though I wonder, who will be first on the Election '08 ballot to try and use this to their political advantage?

Brave New Media: Shift Happens

Found this ditty over on Plannersphere compacting the big impacts of globalization and the information age


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