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Oct 7, 2007
"Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties." --Erich Fromm
How Captcha Puzzles Serve
A weapon used to fight spammers is now helping university researchers preserve old books and manuscripts. Many websites use an automated test to tell computers and humans apart when signing up for an account or logging in. Known as captcha puzzles, these tests usually contain a few random letters in an image, arranged in such a way that automated programs cannot read. Carnegie Mellon scientists have found a creative way to leverage these puzzles, which take an estimated 3000 man-hours daily: take words that can't be deciphered by computers trying to digitize old books and manuscripts, and use those words in the puzzles. This unique approach is decoding a million words every day.
BE THE CHANGE
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