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DARPA Red Balloon Challenge


ohdaho

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DARPA Challenge 2009 is a unique contest using balloons to test social networks - both online and off.

After introducing the Internet to the world 40 years ago, DARPA is again looking to sequester the internet for this new challenge. The DARPA Challenge 2009 is awarding $40,000 to the first team to correctly identify the correct location of ten weather balloons, located in different parts of the United States.

These massive eight-foot balloons will be launching on December 5th at 7am, PST, remaining aloft until sunset, around 5pm. Teams will be able to submit locations up until December 14th, giving teams about one week to collate all the data and submit solutions.

This contest presents a unique challenge - since no one individual can find all ten balloons, teams will need to rely heavily on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to team with others to find balloon locations. DARPA's goal is not to see if teams can answer the question, but rather to measure what role social networks can play to resolve problems.

Norman Whitaker, DARPA's deputy director of transformational convergence technology states, "We are not interested in the balloons. We already know where those are. It's the techniques people use to solve the challenge we're focused on. We have people who are going to be actively watching from the sidelines to see how this plays out." Whitaker hopes the DARPA Challenge 2009 will offer insight into how networks can help build teams to solve real world challenges.

its a test of twitter and facebook and how well people use them :lol:

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Actually my thesis work may be on some of this. Just know you (john Q public) are not the only ones using social networking websites. Others may/may not be using them as recruiting tools or forums for communication.

These balloons may/may not represent people/groups.

Theres a link between the two.

For those with facebook

http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=afit+red+balloon&init=quick

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So, I reiterate, what does this accomplish?

It accomplishes $40,000 in the winning teams pocket. Other than that it show governements week grasp of there budgets.

it's deer season, they better hang it high. really high

Edited by Gump
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Actually my thesis work may be on some of this. Just know you (john Q public) are not the only ones using social networking websites. Others may/may not be using them as recruiting tools or forums for communication.

These balloons may/may not represent people/groups.

Theres a link between the two.

For those with facebook

http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=afit+red+balloon&init=quick

Right.

This is a great way to measure how efficient a communication device social networks are. If current resources allow the winning team to accomplish this in 5 minutes, they want to know about it.

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