Michael Soland dot com

I read about this article on Gizmodo this morning and they linked it from TechCrunch. I have to say that this is one of the most brilliant internet search ideas on the web right now. Use the image recognition abilities and raw processing power of millions of humans “connected” through the internet.

I really hope they we find Jim Gray. If successful, who knows what other distributed human computing tasks we can look forward to next. In the domain of “machine intelligence”, humans still rule. I would really enjoy seeing more of these types of things around.

For instance, mobile phone operators have the ability to see which devices are serviced by a particular tower. A tower has a fixed location and is in proximity to at least one or more zip codes. The tower should be able to send amber alert messages (or an equivalent “crime alert” message) to those people who have opted to receive the messages. Recipients should not be charged since it’s above and beyond normal civic responsibility. Imagine having thousands of pairs of eyeballs looking for missing people or suspected criminals moments after something happens. Of course I might be overly optimistic about the potential of such a program, but what the hell?