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How Good do Spam Filters Have to be?

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Interesting article on Read/WriteWeb about Spam emails outnumbering legit emails this year.  They also point out that the user experience continues to get better all the time, even as the raw amount of spam keeps increasing, because spam filters keep getting better.  One interesting open question is how good spam filters have to be before they make spam uneconomical.  After all, even though spam is very cheap to send, it isn’t *quite* free.  It will be interesting to see if we can predict whether technology can make spam a bad business decision, or whether we have to change the laws for that to happen.  I wonder if there’s a way to frame this question as an empirically-based research question?

John

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Another use of games to accomplish something unrelated

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Social computing researchers have lately been investigating the use of games to produce useful work, i.e., structuring games so that they produce work as a byproduct of play. The most well-known example is the ESP Game, where two people look at the same image and try to guess matching image labels without any communication outside the game — the useful work being the labels produced. (I should note that it’s controversial whether the labels produced by the ESP Game are actually worthwhile, but that detail isn’t important here.)

Here’s an interesting variation: freerice.com. This is a vocabulary quiz game, complete with a numeric assessment of your "vocab level". (This blogger hovers around 41.) But it’s also a way to convert dollars generated by advertising — you’re shown three ads along with each word — into food for the needy.

I wonder if the advertisers on this site are being taken for a ride. What are the click-through rates compared to other websites?

Blender that works when you simulate the sound you want vocally!

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Here’s an article about a blender that works when you growl at it.  You simulate the pitch you want the blender’s motor to make, and off it goes!

I’ve been thinking for a while I’d like my car to be able to open its doors if I beep at it like it beeps when I press the button on the dongle.  What other toys would you like to work when you “talk” to them?

John

P.S. I’m practicing humming the Windows shutdown tune ..

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Social networking and charity

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Some of us are looking into literature that studies volunteers, in particular, what types of factors motivate people to join and to continue participating in volunteer activities. From this perspective, the following NY Times article was quite interesting: "My Network, My Cause". It reports on how some students have used Facebook to organize "traditional" volunteering activities – here, getting donations for the people of Darfur – using a new technology. Personally, I’m more interested in how what’s known about "offline" volunteering can inform the design of online volounteer-based communities, but this still is quite intriguing.