And Also: Pentagon Trying To Crack Social Media
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Showing posts with label Darpa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Darpa. Show all posts
06 January 2010
DARPA Red Balloon Winner On Colbert Report
See Also: Team From MIT Wins DARPA Red Balloon Contest
And Also: Pentagon Trying To Crack Social Media
And Also: Pentagon Trying To Crack Social Media
07 December 2009
Team From MIT Wins DARPA Red Balloon Challenge
Information Week
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers took less than nine hours to find 10 weather balloons that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency had placed randomly in public places around the United States, claiming the $40,000 contest prize.
About 4,300 teams participated in DARPA's Network Challenge over the weekend. The Pentagon will study the results to better understand how social networking can solve large-scale problems that require fast solutions.
DARPA placed the 8-foot, red balloons, all marked with numbered pennants and most with a DARPA banner, in public parks and other locations, from Miami's South Beach and San Francisco's Union Square to a tennis court in Charlottesville, Va. [see: Pentagon Trying To Crack Social Networking]
Teams used various methods to identify balloon locations, from synthesizing public information to collaborating in large groups. Some tried to confuse challenge participants with false locations, including a large paper copy of a balloon in Providence, R.I.
The winning team was headed by scientist Riley Crane, who is studying social networking in a post-doctoral fellowship at M.I.T. and author of academic papers about YouTube. His team, the M.I.T. Red Balloon Challenge Team, was a collaborative effort that used an inverse pyramid model to encourage the help of others.
The team divvied the $40,000 by giving $2,000 to the first person who sent them correct coordinates for each balloon, then $1,000 to whoever invited that person to participate, $500 to whoever invited that person, and so on. Leftover funds will go to charity.
In addition to studying interaction that took place on the Web, DARPA plans to interview teams in order to understand the strategies they used to build networks and collect information.
DARPA is the government agency that developed many of the technologies that became integral to the Internet. The Network Challenge is one of a series of recent DARPA-sponsored challenges, which have included a $2 million prize for the builders of a robot car that drove itself over a 131-mile desert course in California.
DARPA placed the 8-foot, red balloons, all marked with numbered pennants and most with a DARPA banner, in public parks and other locations, from Miami's South Beach and San Francisco's Union Square to a tennis court in Charlottesville, Va. [see: Pentagon Trying To Crack Social Networking]
Teams used various methods to identify balloon locations, from synthesizing public information to collaborating in large groups. Some tried to confuse challenge participants with false locations, including a large paper copy of a balloon in Providence, R.I.
The winning team was headed by scientist Riley Crane, who is studying social networking in a post-doctoral fellowship at M.I.T. and author of academic papers about YouTube. His team, the M.I.T. Red Balloon Challenge Team, was a collaborative effort that used an inverse pyramid model to encourage the help of others.
The team divvied the $40,000 by giving $2,000 to the first person who sent them correct coordinates for each balloon, then $1,000 to whoever invited that person to participate, $500 to whoever invited that person, and so on. Leftover funds will go to charity.
In addition to studying interaction that took place on the Web, DARPA plans to interview teams in order to understand the strategies they used to build networks and collect information.
DARPA is the government agency that developed many of the technologies that became integral to the Internet. The Network Challenge is one of a series of recent DARPA-sponsored challenges, which have included a $2 million prize for the builders of a robot car that drove itself over a 131-mile desert course in California.
01 December 2009
Pentagon Trying To Crack Social Networking
NY Times
The prize is $40,000, and it goes to the first person or group to determine the locations of 10 red balloons that can be anywhere in the continental United States.
The apparent frivolity of the challenge is only on the surface. This is not a game invented by some eccentric Web Midas. The contest, which takes place on Dec. 5, is being sponsored by Darpa, the Pentagon’s research agency.
The goal is to learn more about social behavior in computer networks and how large computer-connected teams use their resources and connections to compete.
There is also an invention being celebrated. Peter Lee, a computer scientist and one of the Darpa directors organizing the contest, said Dec. 5 would be the 40th anniversary of the day when the first four nodes of the Arpanet — the experimental military-sponsored computer network that was the forerunner of today’s Internet — were connected.
Darpa has previously sponsored three “grand challenges” in an effort to advance the technology for autonomous vehicles. In the second one, in 2005, a Stanford University team won $2 million when its roboticized Volkswagen Touareg was the quickest to navigate a 131-mile course through California desert.
The mission of the agency, created in 1958 after the Sputnik satellite’s launching, is to guard the country against technological surprise. But Darpa prompted concerns about privacy after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when it created a program to use data-mining technologies to identify potential terrorists.
Dr. Lee said he was not certain what to expect in the tactics that teams might use to track down the balloons, which will be visible from public roadways for a single day. Some groups are developing software applications. Dr. Lee said he also expected large teams of spotters and even the possibility that some groups might use subterfuge like disseminating false information.
Other groups may try to pay for information, he said, noting that even during a brief experiment the agency ran with a balloon near its headquarters, information on the location was offered for sale on Craigslist.
Dr. Lee said the agency would continue to pursue a number of large and small challenge-style contests to foster what he described as new ways to tap into pools of talented individuals and creative groups. Contestants from anywhere in the world may participate in this contest, he said, and registration will stay open until the contest begins.
The apparent frivolity of the challenge is only on the surface. This is not a game invented by some eccentric Web Midas. The contest, which takes place on Dec. 5, is being sponsored by Darpa, the Pentagon’s research agency.
The goal is to learn more about social behavior in computer networks and how large computer-connected teams use their resources and connections to compete.
There is also an invention being celebrated. Peter Lee, a computer scientist and one of the Darpa directors organizing the contest, said Dec. 5 would be the 40th anniversary of the day when the first four nodes of the Arpanet — the experimental military-sponsored computer network that was the forerunner of today’s Internet — were connected.
Darpa has previously sponsored three “grand challenges” in an effort to advance the technology for autonomous vehicles. In the second one, in 2005, a Stanford University team won $2 million when its roboticized Volkswagen Touareg was the quickest to navigate a 131-mile course through California desert.
The mission of the agency, created in 1958 after the Sputnik satellite’s launching, is to guard the country against technological surprise. But Darpa prompted concerns about privacy after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when it created a program to use data-mining technologies to identify potential terrorists.
Dr. Lee said he was not certain what to expect in the tactics that teams might use to track down the balloons, which will be visible from public roadways for a single day. Some groups are developing software applications. Dr. Lee said he also expected large teams of spotters and even the possibility that some groups might use subterfuge like disseminating false information.
Other groups may try to pay for information, he said, noting that even during a brief experiment the agency ran with a balloon near its headquarters, information on the location was offered for sale on Craigslist.
Dr. Lee said the agency would continue to pursue a number of large and small challenge-style contests to foster what he described as new ways to tap into pools of talented individuals and creative groups. Contestants from anywhere in the world may participate in this contest, he said, and registration will stay open until the contest begins.
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