Google Asks Surfers for Help

Advertisement (Why?)

Google is asking surfers with time on their hands to help it categorize and label the images indexed by its search engine, building a database of knowledge about the contents of the images. The company launched a new online game on Friday, Google Image Labeler, which it describes as "a fun way to help us organize all the images on the Web." In the game, two randomly selected players are each shown the same image, plucked at random from Google's search index, and given 90 seconds to suggest as many keywords or phrases as they can to describe it. They score points if any of their descriptions match.

Google's image search engine currently returns results based on captions and other text adjacent to images on Web pages, without reference to the content of the images themselves. The game will allow it to improve the performance of the search engine by returning results based on the players' descriptions of the images.

View: Google image labeler

View: The full story

News source: PCWorld

#1 lbmouse on 05 Sep 2006 - 16:00

Amazon will pay you (albeit not very much) for doing a similar task. Google needs to add a similar monetary incentive.

#2 Sniper101 on 05 Sep 2006 - 16:16

Hahaahhaahaha im playing this

i suck at it

iv only got 100 at the moment and the person im playing has got 1,394

#3 xpgeek on 05 Sep 2006 - 16:20

I tried playing it, the person it chose for me to play with just sat there doing nothing, and then I got bored with it.

#4 Jedimark on 05 Sep 2006 - 16:30

Hahaha this is fun :s

#5 iomayho on 05 Sep 2006 - 16:32

hahaha... quite a fun game

(1 reply) #6 shirike on 05 Sep 2006 - 17:08

When you open that page it gives you a nickname and the nickname was my current MSN name.

How did they manage that?

#6.1 Munkyman on 05 Sep 2006 - 18:07

They own your soul.

#7 IndianPimp99 on 05 Sep 2006 - 18:44

Not bad I guess. It would work a little better if the pictures were a bit bigger. On some of them I couldn't tell what anything was and it wasted time to guess or wait for the other guy to pass.

#8 Dakkaroth on 05 Sep 2006 - 18:47

You should be able to cash your points in for something. That'd be much of an incentive.

(1 reply) #9 crimsonhead on 05 Sep 2006 - 18:50

does any pr0n every end up in the game?

#9.1 Yuxi Jr on 05 Sep 2006 - 20:01

Hmm that would attract the most attention :p

#10 hairyjohnson on 05 Sep 2006 - 20:44

so a billion dollar company is getting help for free?
You know, they pay people to index for them.......

#11 Zer0_II on 05 Sep 2006 - 21:24

There are a lot of complete morons playing the game. It might be a bit more fun if it wasn't for that...

(1 reply) #12 crimsonhead on 05 Sep 2006 - 22:01

Cmon people play, it's more fun than it sounds.

And B*tch

Last edited by crimsonhead on 05 Sep 2006 - 22:08

#12.1 Croquant on 05 Sep 2006 - 22:27

Quote - crimsonhead said @ #12

And B*tch

United Colors Of Beneton

#13 Avalanche on 05 Sep 2006 - 22:46

Just played but each image that passed was reduced in time, the last one I had two seconds to "label" ...

#14 Mike Frett on 06 Sep 2006 - 04:14

Lol, I always click "pass" after the other guy types in 3 labels. I love screwing with people.

Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!

Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.

Neowin.net