DARPA Shredder challenge : $50000 prize offered

The United States Department of Defense agency DARPA which develops new technologies for US defence came up with a puzzle solving challenge in which they offered $50,000 for winners.

Challenge

This is simple We will be given shredded peices of a paper(document) which has to be reconstructed.Here the level of complexity is in the no. of peices the paper will be shredded. There will be given 5 puzzles with increasing complexity. The one who solves all or who gets highest points will win

The ability to reconstruct shredded documents will potentially yield information that may save lives or offer critical information about an adversary’s plans,” said Mr. Dan Kaufman, Director of DARPA’s Information Innovation Office. “Currently, this process is much too slow and too labor-intensive, particularly if the documents are handwritten. We are looking to the Shredder Challenge to generate some leap-ahead thinking in this area.

The Shredder Challenge is composed of five separate problems in which the number of documents, subject matter and the method of shredding is varied to present challenges of increasing difficulty. To complete each problem, participants are called upon to provide answers to puzzles embedded in the content of reconstructed documents. The overall prize awarded depends on the number and difficulty of problems solved

Register Here

Sean Parker on DataSharing and Spotify [Video] Web 2.0 summit

Sean Parker, Yesterday replaced by Mark Pincus

Sean Parker's interests in revolutionizing the music industry, so to speak, are well known from his early days as a co-founder of Napster. His current efforts on this horizon are focused on Spotify.

"These historical limitations that defined the dynamics of the record business no longer any sense," said Parker.

Parker described Spotify as an "attempt to finish" what he started with Napster, being that it is a "dream of frictionless-free, tiered service that enables music sharing."

"We're all trying to figure out what is that next music industry," Parker admitted. "There's a whole set of things we have to figure out when moving to digital distribution."

Read More Here

"G+ an identity service | No one is forcing you to use it " says Eric Smidth

 " G+ was build primarily as an identity service, so fundamentally, it depends on people using their real names if they're going to build future products that leverage that information. "

" G+ is completely optional. No one is forcing you to use it "

These comments are by Eric Schmidt at the Edinburgh TV Festival yesterday 

Via Andy Carvin

Facebook Update: Now Bigger and Faster Photos

In next few days everybody using facebook gonna see images you share slight bigger and faster. Today Facebook said  that

             " Sharing photos is one of the most popular activities on its social network. Users upload more than 250 million photos each day.  the photos you share on Facebook are bigger (720 pixels to 960 pixels) and load twice as fast, giving you quicker access to more detailed images.  Photos you've already uploaded to your profile will also be displayed at this higher resolution.  "

It also said about the Focus on the Photo --

" Today, we are rolling out a more streamlined photo viewer that features a cleaner interface that makes it even easier to enjoy your photos. The light box is now set against a simple white background that puts more of the focus on the photo, and less on the surrounding frame." 

Google+ Updated : Verified Public Figures like in Twitter

Google+ is now verifying celebrities and popular people who are featured in too many Circles and awarding them with a ‘verified’ badge for followers to know they are really following who they think they are following. 

Google Maps Updated : Weather forecast added

Yesterday Google updated Maps to show weather conditions and forecast for next four days.

If you select the weather layer on Google Maps you can view the current temperature and weather conditions for where ever you are. You can also see the current cloud coverage for the whole world.




If you want a weather forecast for a location you can also click on the weather icon for a particular city. An info window will then open with a detailed summary of current humidity and wind conditions, as well as a forecast for the next four days. 

Firefox 7 Beta : Implements Project Memshrink (Speed,Stability,Perception)

Firefox7 Beta has released by Mozilla just two days after Firefox6s official release. And this Beta release is first in the history of browsers to implement MemShrink. 

MemShrink : MemShrink is a project that aims to reduce Firefox's memory consumption nearly 50% of now. Find more about MenShrink

Firefox7 Official version is scheduled to be released on Sept. 27 (wiki.mozilla.com says). 

You will be able to download the new Firefox 7 Beta for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms, and as for those who have been running the Firefox beta, they need not worry since their version(s) will be updated automatically. On a slightly different note, Mozilla has also rolled out a beta version of Firefox for Android. It must be noted that Firefox 7′s memory usage will remain constant even if you decide to leave the computer and browser running overnight, where it will free up even more memory whenever you close more tabs.

Linux celebrating 20 years ! [video]

On the eve of 20th anniversery of linux the linux foundation released this video