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Google

Submission + - Google buys reCAPTCHA for better book scanning (cio.com.au)

Submitted by TimmyC
TimmyC writes: This story may interest the Slashdot folk, many of whom use the reCAPTCHA anti-spam service. Well, reCAPTCHA is now owned by Google. Apparently, what attracted Google to ReCAPTCHA is that the company has linked its core authentication service with efforts to digitize print books and periodicals. The search giant has a massive (and controversial) effort underway in that area for its Google Books and Google News Archive services. Every time people solve a CAPTCHA from the company, they are also, as a byproduct, helping to turn scanned words into plain text that can be indexed and made searchable by search engines. Interesting times indeed.
Spam

Submission + - Cheating the App Store (mobilecrunch.com)

Submitted by space_in_your_face
space_in_your_face writes: Want to boost the popularity of your latest iphone app? Ask Reverb Communications! "When it comes to winning in the App Store, this PR firm has discovered a dynamite strategy: throw ethics out the window. Reverb Communications, a PR firm that represents dozens of game publishers and developers, has managed to find astounding success on Apple's App Store for its clients. Among its various tactics? It hires a team of interns to trawl iTunes and other community forums posing as real users, and has them write positive reviews for their client's applications."

Comment Just tell the truth (Score 1) 365

by space_in_your_face (#28780905) Attached to: Visualizing False Positives In Broad Screening
Instead of giving a binary answer ("You are (not) a terrorist"), just communicate the probability ("There's one chance in three hundred that you are a terrorist. As this is higher than in the general population, we will investigate further to know for sure."). The same apply for medical exams. You can tell someone "The test tells us you have one chance in one hundred to have lupus. It's low, but higher than normal. We need to do more tests to know for sure".
Government

Submission + - Help me fight the swiss dmca. (no-dmca.ch)

Submitted by
pyalot
pyalot writes: "The swiss goverment has passed a law that would make it impossible to cirvumvent effective copy protection measures. I have created a page to inform and organize a resistance against this law. If we collect 50'000 signatures until the 24th of January however, we can force a national vote on this law. Help me in any way that you can fight this law. I was first made aware of this two days ago by this article on slashdot."
Math

Submission + - A Mighty Number Falls

Submitted by space_in_your_face
space_in_your_face writes: Mathematicians and number buffs have their records. And today, an international team has broken a long-standing one in an impressive feat of calculation. On March 6, computer clusters from three institutions — the EPFL, the University of Bonn and NTT in Japan — reached the end of eleven months of strenuous calculation, churning out the prime factors of a well-known, hard-to-factor number that is a whopping 307 digits long.

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