The Truth about Captcha
You know those “Captcha” things you sometimes (or often) have to type in when posting comments or submitting information online? It’s usually a made-up sounding word all bent out of shape that you have to decypher to continue. The purpose of these Captcha words is to stop computers automatically posting things to web sites, since computers are not yet smart enough to be able to interpret the distorted text as characters, and possibly a word. Frankly, there’s debate over whether Captcha is any better than most other types of spam-blocking software, meaning that the 10 seconds or so you spend filling out a Captcha form is, well, a bit pointless. I’m sure there are many people who feel that way.
BUT… did you know that the technology behind Captcha is being harnessed in a really REALLY clever way? You may have seen something called “ReCaptcha”–where you have TWO “words” to decypher. This is part of a very cool project to make those 10 seconds worthwhile. How worthwhile? How about digitizing books?
Intrigued? Take a look at this presentation by Luis von Ahn, the guy who invented Captcha, talking about that, and his latest project to translate the web into every major language while teaching you a new language–for free. I hate waste, whether wasted food, wasted energy, or wasted time, so this kind of clever thinking really impresses me. The video is 17 minutes and 7 seconds long. Enjoy!
I love when people are so clever!
I love reCaptcha, it’s a great project. It always makes the boring task of answering Captcha’s more enjoyable to see their logo on it, and the ReCaptcha’s tend to be easier to make out than some of the ordinary Captchas.
I don’t know why, but I always seem to end up with vaguely perverse sounding CAPTCHA words. Although, the other day I got ‘plato’ which was kind of cool! For a while I was writing down all of the CAPTCHA words I was getting because I wanted to do something cool and unique with them. And then I realized I just couldn’t be bothered. It was fun while it lasted, though 🙂