Slashdot Mirror

You might have a look at the IARPA releases on this, especially https://www.innocentive.com/ar.... Programmers are *not* being asked to release their software rights: "To receive an award, Solvers will not have to transfer their IP rights or grant a license to the Seeker – the purpose of the Challenge is to gauge how far recent advances in speech recognition have come in solving this important problem. With broad participation, this Challenge has the potential to provide IARPA with insights on the best next steps to stimulate research for solving this challenging problem." Of course, if someone does come up with a significant improvement on the state of the art, they might be in a good position to sell it--for >> $50k.

Given that they add nothing to the mission other than weight, I say they won't be astronauts no matter how high the flight goes...they are just...ballast.

Maybe they would like to go to Mars?

infrastructure gobbles up a lot of money and its maintenance (or lack thereof) is a major issue in this country

You've nailed it. Infrastructure has become invisible, unlauded, boring. Infrastructure is the original stuff that matters.

Aside from entering some engineering field, there are ways that nerds can make a difference. Take this dam for example, clearly a certain level of routine surveillance had not been performed . If divers discover a 2 inch crack, could there have been a half inch or hairline crack some time ago? And could a more thorough use of remote imaging or even acoustic technology have spotted it? What if someone who reads Slashdot has an idea for some economical and effective way to inspect dams should contact Thomas Stredwick at PUD and offer expertise and propose such a method? At times history favors those who make those phone calls.

I define a 'nerd' as someone technologically aware who is capable, by the multidisciplinary nature of technology, of useful insight. The biggest problem with nerd-culture today in my opinion is that they tend to be observers who are not out there looking for problems to solve.

If you consider yourself to be tech-savvy in some field or are just interested in what problems are out there, check out the InnoCentive Challenges. These are a collection of problems to solve, big and little, that someone has documented and put up cash money to solve. Some of the challenges are interesting and very specific. For example, if you can propose a good way to Detect Protruding Nails in a Wooden Pallet that is going past on a conveyor belt, there might be $20,000 in it for you. Also lots of chemistry, medical materials science challenges.

Infrastructure should be a part of your child's exploration of the modern world. Underground by David Macaulay gives readers an introduction to utilities by presenting awesome ink drawings of incredible perspective and detail. As they start reading. Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape is the kind of book you want your children to grow up with and browse long before they understand all the words. Because great books about interesting things deliver the words to them.

I am an infrastructure maniac.

___
Obligatory bump to the Thorium Alliance and my own letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

infrastructure gobbles up a lot of money and its maintenance (or lack thereof) is a major issue in this country

You've nailed it. Infrastructure has become invisible, unlauded, boring. Infrastructure is the original stuff that matters.

Aside from entering some engineering field, there are ways that nerds can make a difference. Take this dam for example, clearly a certain level of routine surveillance had not been performed . If divers discover a 2 inch crack, could there have been a half inch or hairline crack some time ago? And could a more thorough use of remote imaging or even acoustic technology have spotted it? What if someone who reads Slashdot has an idea for some economical and effective way to inspect dams should contact Thomas Stredwick at PUD and offer expertise and propose such a method? At times history favors those who make those phone calls.

I define a 'nerd' as someone technologically aware who is capable, by the multidisciplinary nature of technology, of useful insight. The biggest problem with nerd-culture today in my opinion is that they tend to be observers who are not out there looking for problems to solve.

If you consider yourself to be tech-savvy in some field or are just interested in what problems are out there, check out the InnoCentive Challenges. These are a collection of problems to solve, big and little, that someone has documented and put up cash money to solve. Some of the challenges are interesting and very specific. For example, if you can propose a good way to Detect Protruding Nails in a Wooden Pallet that is going past on a conveyor belt, there might be $20,000 in it for you. Also lots of chemistry, medical materials science challenges.

Infrastructure should be a part of your child's exploration of the modern world. Underground by David Macaulay gives readers an introduction to utilities by presenting awesome ink drawings of incredible perspective and detail. As they start reading. Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape is the kind of book you want your children to grow up with and browse long before they understand all the words. Because great books about interesting things deliver the words to them.

I am an infrastructure maniac.

___
Obligatory bump to the Thorium Alliance and my own letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

the Competes Act gives every department and agency the authority to conduct prize competitions

Prize competitons, puzzles, solutions. It sounds a bit like innocentive, which is a more global thing that has been running for the past 9 years.

Wow, the OP asks for examples of applications that encourage innovation. There are over two hundred responses and none appear to actually answer the question.

Take a look at the Why Not? idea exchange. This one is most probably the best fit for stimulating ideas but is the least appropriate for corporate use.

The first of the challenge based innovation sites was most probably Innocentive. Please excuse the shameless self promotion but do take a look at Cogenuity (currently in beta) which does a better job than Innocentive at combining challenge based collective intelligence with social networking.

• Cogenuity has different types of challenges. The promoter can be the judge, anyone can be judge, or a select few (chosen by the promoter) can be the judge.
• In some challenges, there is only one winner who gets the entire purse.
• There are also challenges where there can be multiple winners who share the purse.
• Teams can be formed to work on solutions to challenges.
• Solutions are highly collaborative with support for document sharing, etc.
• Both teams and challenges have discussion areas (i.e. forum topics).
• There is also support for message in-box, blogging, and micro-blogging.

I have blogged about Cogenuity and about these and other problem solving applications elsewhere.

Good luck with your search!