reCAPTCHAby Jim

Wed
28 May 2008
8:05 pm
4

Today at work I attended a presentation by the inventor of CAPTCHA, Luis von Ahn, entitled Human Computation. An older version of this presentation he gave at Google is here. It was a very interesting (not to mention entertaining) presentation about how humans can be used to do things computers can’t. The coolest part is that he has created a way to turn games into a useful part of a computer program to identify words and images. At the presentation, he showed us a web service called reCAPTCHA. Basically, what it does is translate words from text scans of documents to digitize books. It turns the process of validating “human” users into contributing to a large project to make the world a better place. Cool.

So, I went to their website and found a WordPress plugin! I’ve installed the plugin, so donate some of your brainpower to a good cause by leaving a comment. This new feature now means you can leave comments without having to wait for them to be moderated. Enjoy!

P.S. Angie is doing well. The recovery is slow, but she is making progress.

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