Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
CMU Researcher Uses eCommerce Tool To Digitize Books
6/4/2007
A researcher at Carnegie Mellon University has found a way to turn the process by which people register at commercial websites into a method for digitizing books, the Associated Press reported.The method involves putting the time and effort people spend deciphering the short word puzzles used to confirm a registration to better use by having users key-in print materials that need digitizing.
The word puzzles are known as CAPTCHAs, short for "completely automated public Turing tests to tell computers and humans apart."
Computers can't decipher the letters and numbers, ensuring that real people are using the websites.
CMU researchers estimated about 60 million CAPTCHA puzzles are solved every day, taking about 10 seconds each. Researchers have now come up with a way for people to type in snippets of books when registering at a site to help speed up the process of putting texts online.
"Humanity is wasting 150,000 hours every day on these," said Luis von Ahn, an assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, who helped develop the original system.
Von Ahn is working with the Internet Archive, which runs several book-scanning projects, to use CAPTCHAs for this instead. The Archive scans 12,000 books a month and sends von Ahn image files that the computer cannot recognize. The files are split up into single words that can be used as CAPTCHAs at sites all over the Internet.
Read More:
Paul McCloskey is a contributing editor for the Campus Technology group of publications.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- U Wyoming Students Vote To Implement Sonic Foundry's Mediasite for Lecture Capture
An overwhelming student vote for Mediasite will put the Webcasting platform from Sonic Foundry into University of Wyoming lecture halls this fall. Mediasite is a presentation capture tool that records and synchronizes audio, video, and slides and then allows the presenter to provide it online for on-demand viewing or in podcast form. The tool also enables the presenter to make the presentation available online as it happens.
- DNS Flaw Unfixed as Experts Argue Protocol
Speculation continues as to what the ultimate systemic Domain Name System (DNS) flaw could be. This flaw apparently allows Web surfers to be spoofed, directing them to fake Web sites to gain passwords and load malware on their computers.
- IT Cost Cuts in 2008 May Be a Trend, Study Says
A first-quarter 2008 survey conducted by Computer Economics suggests a possible slowdown in IT spending and staffing lies ahead.
- Microsoft Revamps Its Platforms Division, Loses Kevin Johnson
Microsoft announced late Wednesday a reorganization of its Platforms & Services Division (PSD), as well as the departure of Kevin Johnson, a 16-year Microsoft veteran and president of the PSD.
- Microsoft's DNS Fix Leads to More Problems
The blogosphere is awash with talk about the possible overall weakness of the Domain Name System (DNS) architecture. For its part, Microsoft's released a DNS fix in its patch slate for July, but Redmond seems to have problems just getting it to end users. Moreover, some users of the DNS fix have experienced additional difficulties.
- D2L Launches Mobile Learning Environment
Desire2Learn this week announced a new mobile application of its Desire2Learn Learning Environment. Called Desire2Learn 2GO, the application ties in with Learning Environment 8.3 to provide access via Blackberry. The company also announced that it's streamlining integration Respondus 3.5, a quiz- and test-building application.
