Have you seen the recaptcha boxes on some sites?
The ‘captcha’ box is essentially a text image that you have to verify to prove that you are human and the site isn’t being abused or misused by nasty little applications.
Carnegie Mellon University started this whole thing.
Well, I learned something new today, thanks to BBC News (God Bless the BBC).
The new recaptcha boxes are a twist on the old story. I’ve seen these a couple of times and never noticed the ‘Stop Spam. Read books’ text in the bottom right corner. I guess I was too intent on getting the obscure text correct.
By using the recaptcha box and typing the words in correctly you are actually playing detective and helping CMU translate text from more than 100 million books that are being digitized. The computers couldn’t read he stuff you are. You’re saving them about 400 years. Thanks!
Wouldn’t it be nice if thy gave you points or something every time you used the box. Maybe adding up to prized or something, ya know, as we’re helping out ‘n all.
