Where is James Gray? The computer scientist has gone missing and the search has been called off, but not unless the Internet has something to say about it. Now you too can help in the search thanks to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service which will s…

http://blog.nometers.com/?p=25

I read about this article on Gizmodo this morning and they linked it from TechCrunch.  I have to say that this is one of the most brilliant internet search ideas on the web right now.  Use the image recognition abilities and raw processing power of m…

Budget Question:
Any funding to put Image Analysis Automation operation together in very short time? multiple machines/servers

Jim Gray’s Clothing:
What is he wearing? color of his clothing? What did he bring to his boat as far as clothing?

Talent Question:
Am I the ONLY one in web space have done this kind of image analysis and automation? Hellooooo! Anyone raise your mouse?

Scenario analysis:
It is very important to gather all the reliable facts, location/date/time of his sailing, boat specification, weather condition, ocean current, his medical condition, his sailing habits, his boat history and condition, food/water storage inside the boat, etc.

Useful:
Coastal guard and private plane’s coverage, date/time/altitude. We need to understand why they can’t find any sign or debris.

Boat photos:
As many as possible to draw any clues

Satellite Photos:
It is important to have access to the highest resolution images to identify pixel patterns, shape and color.

Founder of SVWB
http://www.svwebbuilder.com

Note: Would any web professionals help us to post our next Feb 28 meeting Browser Wars Episode II Attack of the DOMs to your professional network? Or tell your professional friends? http://browserw....eventbrite.com. I have to deliver no. of attendees for our speakers and sponsors and I am handling the Marketing campaign without any marketing budget.

۱- در سال ۱۷۶۹ میلادی یک مجارستانی به نام ولفگانگ وان کمپلن اروپای آن روز را با عرضه‌ی یک ماشین شطرنجباز شگفتزده کرد: این ماشین مکانیکی توا…

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is “artificial artificial intelligence”, a system where humans do what humans do best, get paid to act as “machines” that can perform tasks that are easier for humans to do than their computer counterpart, such as ma…

Thanks for bringing this seminal ‘real-world search by tech proxy’ to our attention. We join the many who hope for Jim’s quick and safe return to his friends and family, and remain thankful for them allowing us to be part of the search.

Clearly this incident is a turning point in showcasing the teamwork both beneficial and necessary to saving lives in times of duress.

Our staff at the Los Angeles Fire Department looks forward to participating in expanded trials of such open, seamless and participatory endeavors.

Respectfully Yours in Safety and Service,

Brian Humphrey
Firefighter/Specialist
Public Service Officer
Los Angeles Fire Department

LAFD Home Page: http://www.lafd.org
LAFD News Blog: http://www.lafd.org/blog

Can we get a more realistic, and applicable to this particular scenario, sample image like this boat in the San Francisco bay: http://maps.goo....009023&t=h

I don’t know what the right scale is, and obviously the calm water is different than the choppy open ocean waves.

However, the altitude from which I captured that link makes the boat in the dead center around 10 pixels tall. That boat appears to be a roughly 30 foot-ish boat, a little smaller than Jim’s boat. The link was captured from a sailboat marina near Pier 40 in San Francisco.

Something like this, but in the open ocean, would be really helpful as a reference.

The “training” section shows you pictures that are smaller than the one you’re actually going to look at. They give you a red rectangle to give you a rough size of what the boat should look like as “training”. But the red rectangle/boat-proxy is much larger in size relative to the small sample square than what a Jim’s-boat-sized area in the big, to-be searched images would look like.

This reality is noted in the small text instructions next to the “training” area, but text instructions like that have a hard time comparing to a nice visual comparison. Sadly, the only example we have of what to look for, is the wrong size.

CALL TO ACTION–Search Team Responsible for this Mechanical Turk Task:

1. How about an example of an actual sail boat in water, with the example image the SAME SIZE as the images to be searched? This information must exist, correct? Even a boat in a boat in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, in the right scale, would be helpful.

Right now, we have zero idea of what success or “something of interest” would look like when going through these images. I want to donate some human brain cycles, but this is really frustrating.

2. Failing that, how about a training sample image the SAME size of the images actually being searched by the volunteers–preferably NEXT to the space on the page where the image being searched shows up– and featuring a rectangle THE SAME COLOR as Jim’s boat. Not a red one. Give us something that you can point to and say “look for something that looks like this.”

If this can’t be done, searchers, be advised that a better size reference is the arrow point of your mouse cursor, which is about 10 px tall if your screen resolution is ~1000 pixels tall (my laptop is 1400×1050).

Me too, And i hope they find Jim. A story about me going missing isn’t likely to recieve enough media attention to make it worth while for amazon to care though.

I might be cynical, But face it, Amazon are doing this for selfish reasons, Free advertising and public relations.