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September 19, 2006, 02:06 PM ET
A Genius Gamesman
Today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette profiles Luis von Ahn, an assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University who just received one of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s coveted "genius grants."
Mr. von Ahn earned his $500,000 fellowship for his pioneering work in the field of "human computation"—a field that uses novel tactics, like game playing, to put people to work solving problems that computers can’t yet handle. His newest project, a game called Phetch, asks one player to type text describing a particular image while other players, reading only the description, take to the Web in search of that image. The game collects well-phrased descriptions and uses them to aid visually impaired Web surfers. —Brock Read
Categories: Research
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