A Faster Jigsaw Solving Algorithm

mikejuk writes "Andrew Gallagher at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York has improved the standard approach to automated jigsaw solving by copying what humans do in finding groups of pieces that best match and working outwards from there. With a speed of 10,000 pieces per 24 hours, it can solve large puzzles. Not only that, but the type of jigsaw it solves is more difficult than the usual in that the pieces are square and can be placed in any orientation. It is so good it can even solve problems consisting of a number of mixed up pieces without being told how many or their dimensions. Of course, as well as having fun beating humans at another recreational pastime, the technique could be used to unscramble shredded documents, as per the recent DARPA challenge."

Comments

Progress.

[philip.paradis]

The march of progress goes on. Every month, new announcements are made that indicate machine intelligence is moving a couple of steps forward. Some are seemingly trivial, some are dubbed merely "interesting," but all contribute to the overall forward march of functional machine reasoning. To date, most of the major advances might be deemed as mere pieces of a much larger puzzle, but ongoing integration of such bits will undoubtedly yield much more interesting results.

Speaking as someone who started his journey into the wonders of computing in the 1980s, things are indeed moving at an accelerated rate these days, and the rate is only continuing to increment. The imaginings of my childhood and early adulthood, as told by Asimov, Gibson, Stephenson, and in some respects even Card, are beginning to reflect reality when viewed through the prism of what is regarded as mundane present day media coverage.

In light of this, my message is simple. If you're working in the information technology arena, and your job doesn't involve focused application of creativity, the time to start refocusing your career objectives is now.