Taken at International Zone, Baghdad
Practical example on #Crowdsourcing Using Amazon Mechanical Turk
Everybody is talking about crowdsourcing, about communities generating value added to private companies and to non profit entities. The debate is clear : Why a crowd will do something for free ?
or Why to pay for crowd work and how much ?
There is no answer. We all are still learning, we’re all crowd and company. There is no previous experience on that. In fact, we all are immersed into the the same environement of unknown methods and process using the new e-communication. The only way to get results is through the traditional method of experimentation, test&check and learn. This is the new paradigm, no books, no references, just experiments.
When you mix the social world with the professional world there is a conflict.
In the social world, your friends, your family, your colleagues and fellows, your relations are based on trust and friendship; nobdoy expects being paid to help you. Just think on house moving, sure you get a friend offering his car and his arms and hands to move your stuff, and for free ! (well a couple of beers will be good enough).
In your professional world, working for a company, everybody agrees that for your work and knowledge you will be paid. Nobody expects you working for free.
But then, what happens when you merge social world and professional world ?
What if a crowd, is expected to create something for a company, and for free ?
Or, how much you will pay that crowd for something a professional is too expensive ?
That’s the Saint Grial all companies are trying to find. Getting value added work … but for free or neglectable costs. The funny think is this works ! There are many examples, from the famous Wikipedia to Google maps. Amazon Mechanical Turk is the example of a company that has invented the business around ‘almost-free-cost’ work of crowds for profitable companies. Not easy. I like the concept of HIT : Human Intelligent Task, it describes pretty well what you expect from the crowd.
I found very interesting the practical example to transcribe handwritten documents into digital. Handwritten docs are not easy to be automatically processed using OCR techniques; if going to a professional then too expensive. So, why not asking the crowd to do it ? Will anybody be interested on doing such work ? Is it ethical ? How can we assure the quality of the work from a crowd ?
If you want to learn a little about that, just read the complete report created by The Code4Lib group, Andrew S.I.D Lang and Joshua Rio-Ross, journal.code4lib.org October 31st 2011 and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
Original Page: http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/6004
How Apple reinvented themselves , from 1981 to 2011 @LaVanguardia
We usually tend to remember only success, but learning and innovation comes usually from failure. Today people only see Apple as the highly successful company for last 8 years, but on 2001 still Apple was in red. What can we learn ? Innovation is the key and not just the cost, only creating products with high value for customers will succeed.
Want to know about augmented reality #AR in a car ? – Safe, Simple and Intuitive #in
via mvs.net
We see lots of new apps coming with augmented reality AR, this one shows an amazing way to provide guidelines for in-car navigation, really closest to what a ‘natural’ guidance should be in a car.
No distractions, simple, clear.
Augmented reality is following the principle that when the technology is not seen by the user, is when perception becomes ‘natural’; you can see in the attached videos the concept and technology MVS gives the name of Virtual Cable. Really cool.
Taking some words from MVS site “… eyes on the road, hands on the wheel and mind on driving …”
It is obvious that such guidance requires the best in class and accurate navigable database with all the information digitized for roads and streets. Such database will not be seen but will be there providing the ‘knowledge’ to the system.
See more in www.mvs.net and do not miss the technology videos explaining the concept http://www.mvs.net/technology.html
El mundo de los mapas: Nuevo paradigma en la formaci??n en SIG via @geoinquiets
via orbemapa.com
Education is in a huge disruptive time. Generation Y, the native digital scholars do need diferent ways for learning. Access to knowledge is becoming more easy through the net and the traditional teaching process must change to follow up the new disruptive digital environment.
GIS training is in a similar disruptive time. Maps, GPS, check-in and location apps are becoming natural part of end-users. As Dr. Armando Guevara says : “success of technology is when it is not seen”.
The challenge for people coming from the cartographic world will be how to convert such complex and sofisticated GIS technology, based on deep cartographic knowledge, to develop value added applications and services for end users.
When I built my home some years ago I asked to the architect why the name was ‘H Arquitectes’, why the ‘H’ in front of the name. The answer was amazing : “the ‘H’ is a letter that is there but you do not perceive (never pronounced in Spanish and Catalan) So, our architecture is designed and created in a way that you perceive the beauty but do not realize is there” http://harquitectes.com/
I believe that principle must also be applied to technology when delivered to end -users : must be there but not perceived.
Just do it for all GIS and new cartographic and location world.
This is the challenge.
Antoni Barniol 