A new company founded by a longtime technologist is setting out to create a vast public database intended to be read by computers rather than people, paving the way for a more automated Internet in which machines will routinely share information.
Intelligence Amplification researchers are creating systems that approximate Artificial Intelligence by using actual human beings as part of computer programs. Humans are asked to perform quick actions (such as identifying a photo or song clip) that are trivial for humans but very difficult for computers. The resulting human input is then combined with computer algorithms to create smarter search engines or databases.
From the billions of documents that form the World Wide Web and the links that weave them together, computer scientists and a growing collection of start-up companies are finding new ways to mine human intelligence.
The U.S. has put thousands of untranslated documents, captured from the former Iraqi government, online in an experiment to see if volunteer researchers can find evidence of weapons of mass destruction or ties to al-Qaeda that the official intelligence agencies could not.
Google has struck a partnership with scientists building a huge sky-scanning telescope, with hopes of helping the public access digital footage of asteroids, supernovas and distant galaxies.
Feature article on the growing power and promise of collaborative software projects for business and science.
Users of Google's new massive database of satellite imagery are finding some surprises in the images such as street parades in California and bombs in Iraq. This development points to the growing relevance and power of satellite imagery but it also shows the promise of posting massive databases online and letting thousands of users sift through to find what they are interested in.
Astronomers, swamped by a tsunami of data from advances in computing and digital imaging, are developing a new, computational branch of astronomy based on simulations and data exploration. Because its primary tools are computers rather than giant, multimillion telescopes, this new form of astronomy has the potential to democratize science.
A hugely ambitious project to find and name every species on Earth within the next 25 years has been launched by scientists. The internet and the development of DNA sequencing technology make the goal achievable, they say.
Interesting look at how Google's record of search requests can be used to identify and track trends.