The ESP Game (it's not what you think)

In an article in the Washington Post, I learned of a fun and addictive game called the ESP Game. The purpose of the game is give short descriptions to random images. You have an anonymous partner who is doing the same. When the two of you match a description, you get another picture. The game is timed so you will be partnered with different people each game.

So, why is this game important? Well, the article explains that there are programs that can read aloud words from the internet for people who are visually impaired, but these programs cannot recognize images unless they are tagged or labeled. Because there are so many images on the web that are without tags, Luis Von Ahn of the Carnegie Mellon University created the ESP Game to get the masses (that's us) to tag a lot of those images.

Here is the link for the Washington Post article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/20/AR2006112001200_pf.html

And the link for the game: http://www.espgame.org

Check out their other game Phetch where players are given a description and they hunt down a picture from the internet.

Have fun!