FiberGeneration

Columbus Day

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered America. 499 years later, I discovered Columbus Avenue.

[photo credit : Don Klosterman]

Heard Things On Things Heards

Al Gore wins the Nobel. Cool.
France First Lady and the President may split today (link in french, sorry - watch the AFP for more soon). Not cool.

mymt2k.com : " My mTurk " ?...

This mymt2k.com thing was too much of interest from a business intelligence perspective for me not to spend an hour or so today to find out what it could be. Turns out it's a... Wait a second, you'll get the answer at the end of this post.

Before that, let's start with the begining : Google. A quick search on "mymt2k" gives a 6-pages results, with FiberGeneration on the first one and lots of... porn-related stuff on the 5th and 6th pages.
On the first page too, a handful of other blogs also displayed on mymt2k. See for instance Euan Semple' s The Obvious, or Blucat and A Reality Of My Own. According to the respective posts, the thing started back in March this year...

Then, let's go on WhoIs to find out who could be behind the mysterious website. Mr Jason Lucas is the happy owner. Congrats, Man ! Such a hype for a domain registered in January, that's quite a success. However, I'm not the only one to think Mr Lucas is a cover...

So, let's dig into the mymt2k website itself. Start with the simple URL 'mymt2k.com' : a nice, white, blank page. Cool, zen, but useless. A quick look at the different URLs mentionned by above bloggers and commenters show that the main content is a dynamic one. See for instance here, and here : same tmp9 directory, yet displaying different content.

Then, how about looking at the 'mymt2k.com/tmp*/' directories themselves ? From 1 to 10 and above, quite interesting outcomes. For instance, in tmp4 there is a link to the old contest at Snap.com.
See the structure of the tmp9 one in the screenshot at the left. Hum... what's that 'mturk' stuff ? Does ring a bell ? Fine, let's go deeper onto the investigation.

Go to the tmp6 directory, and read the bold flashy statement :
" Note: Be patient and check pages carefully! We will invite good mturkers for our next tasks with a much higher payment! "
Okay, finally we got them ! So simple : 'mymt2k' stands for " My mTurk ", easy, right ?

Now, what's an mTurk ? For those of you who are not familiar with the Web 2.0 world, mTurk, or Mechanical Turk, is a new service offered by Amazon since a few months.

You may read the FAQ page on mturk.com here. Pretty exciting yet a bit complex for non-geeks people. In summary, the mTurk service puts Human Intelligence behind the computer (that's a nice one ;-).

Says Amazon :

What is Amazon Mechanical Turk? 

In 1769, Hungarian nobleman Wolfgang von Kempelen astonished Europe by building a mechanical chess-playing automaton that defeated nearly every opponent it faced. A life-sized wooden mannequin, adorned with a fur-trimmed robe and a turban, Kempelen's "Turk" was seated behind a cabinet and toured Europe confounding such brilliant challengers as Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte. To persuade skeptical audiences, Kempelen would slide open the cabinet's doors to reveal the intricate set of gears, cogs and springs that powered his invention. He convinced them that he had built a machine that made decisions using artificial intelligence. What they did not know was the secret behind the Mechanical Turk: a human chess master cleverly concealed inside.

Today, we build complex software applications based on the things computers do well, such as storing and retrieving large amounts of information or rapidly performing calculations. However, humans still significantly outperform the most powerful computers at completing such simple tasks as identifying objects in photographs—something children can do even before they learn to speak.

When we think of interfaces between human beings and computers, we usually assume that the human being is the one requesting that a task be completed, and the computer is completing the task and providing the results. What if this process were reversed and a computer program could ask a human being to perform a task and return the results? What if it could coordinate many human beings to perform a task?

Amazon Mechanical Turk provides a web services API for computers to integrate "artificial artificial intelligence" directly into their processing by making requests of humans. Developers use the Amazon Mechanical Turk web service to submit tasks to the Amazon Mechanical Turk web site, approve completed tasks, and incorporate the answers into their software applications. To the application, the transaction looks very much like any remote procedure call: the application sends the request, and the service returns the results. Behind the scenes, a network of humans fuels this artificial artificial intelligence by coming to the web site, searching for and completing tasks, and receiving payment for their work.

What problem does Amazon Mechanical Turk solve? 

For software developers, the Amazon Mechanical Turk web service solves the problem of building applications that until now have not worked well because they lack human intelligence. Humans are much more effective than computers at solving some types of problems, like finding specific objects in pictures, evaluating beauty, or translating text. The Amazon Mechanical Turk web service gives developers a programmable interface to a network of humans to solve these kinds of problems and incorporate this human intelligence into their applications.

For businesses and entrepreneurs who want tasks completed, the Amazon Mechanical Turk web service solves the problem of getting work done in a cost-effective manner by people who have the skill to do the work. The service provides access to a vast network of human intelligence with the efficiencies and cost-effectiveness of computers. Oftentimes, the cost of establishing a network of skilled people to do the work outweighs the value of completing it. By turning the fixed costs into variable costs that scale with business needs, the Amazon Mechanical Turk web service eliminates this barrier and allows work to be completed that before was not economical.

For people who want to earn money in their spare time, the Amazon Mechanical Turk web site solves the problem of finding work that they can do wherever and whenever they want.

Interesting concept, huh ?

Now, let's go back to the HITs Human Intelligence Tasks main page. There is a "Web Page Classification" HIT here. Looks familiar, right ?
    

The remaining question is : does mymt2k.com belong to Amazon, or is it a kind of mashup by some research firm - or guy (this Jason Lucas is unknown on mTurk, and Steven Research is unknown on Google) ?...

This Man Did It Again

One of the few rules I do follow in business is Never Talk Politics. Especially when it's about Economy. However, there are times when I can't keep my mouth shut. Take Mr Greenspan. Back in 2000, he announced a possible downturn of the US economy. Six months later, the Telecoms industry crashed, bringing down countless firms, startups, and worst, people, all around the Planet. The collateral damages were spectacular yet dramatic...
He did it again earlier this year, warning that the American economy might enter recession by the end of 2007. See what happened with the subprime mortgage crisis this summer, and the actual ongoing global turmoils worldwide.
That's why, the next time this man claims a downturn might occur in your industry, you better look for a new job somewhere else...
   

Leadership, Economy, and Fiber Optics

Thanks to Benoit Felten, this article by Andrew Schmitt of  Nyquist Capital : "The Proving Ground of NTT", or how Japan expect to reach 100% broadband coverage, 90% of which to be ultra-high speed (read : fiber-based) by 2010.

In the early 90's, the Japanese economy crashed. Fifteen or so years later, Japan is back in the Top-5 concert of leading nations. Since fifteen years or so, Japan is building a truly broadband infrastructure. There is a strong link between those two facts : nationwide networks construction creates and maintains jobs, whilst thus available high-speed links helps creating new products & services, hence new jobs. A virtuous circle that propels the Economy.

Fake Steve Jobs, meet Julia O'Brien

Most of you may already know the fantastic (hey, I'm speaking plain old English now ;-) weblog of the brilliant (see ?) Fake Steve Jobs, aka Daniel Lyons, supposedly technology writer for Forbes. Today, I discovered another *must-read* online journal, by Julia O'Brien. Julia is a CIA agent, based in Washington DC.
Hint : she writes her articles in a wonderful french language which most of the french bloggers should learn ;-)

Just This (2.07)