A really interesting TED talk given by Luis von Ahn von Ahn Massive Collaboration piqued my interest while watching it the other day. He talked about some exciting projects that can be done through massive collaboration on the net. I recommend that you watch but even so I'll say that he talked specifically about two such projects: helping to digitize older manuscripts through those jumbled words we have to input to establish on-line security and using free on-line language instruction to translate, for example, all of Wikipedia into Spanish. Very cool stuff!
The thing about those projects that left me wanting something more was that they are simply recasting the past--in a cool and useful way, but it's all still the past. What can be done for free on a massive collaboration basis that benefits our future? BOINC.
More after the fleur de Kos