Google's genius. I hate captcha but at least now I won't feel annoyed in vain. I can one day pay for the book I helped transcribe.
Ike Pigott
· 2 months ago
...and your money will be refunded once Amazon zaps it from your Kindle.
Lipinkumar M P
· 2 months ago
its a great action by google, to allow all the web users to contribute to their great mission(though unknowingly)
Charles Lau
· 2 months ago
Is this the same technology that Google has been using to ask us to key in that illegible words in picture? So far, Google has the most illegible words for me to read and write in to authenticate myself as the real human input. There are almost 50% of the times that I cannot authenticate myself! I just couldn't read the words!
I hope Google will improve after this acquisition! :)
Jon
· 2 months ago
You have a serious problem. Really. Seek medical attention.
Also, GTFO my internet.
Charles Lau
· 2 months ago
But the words are written so cursively... I just cannot catch the right words from time to time.... Probably they are just not charles-readable words... :( haha
Arijit Das
· 2 months ago
Ya... You are absolutely Right!!!
Charles Lau
· 2 months ago
You are referring to me or Jon to be right?
Arijit Das
· 2 months ago
referring to you... :)
darkprincerox
· 2 months ago
lol , not quite get what is reCAPTCHA.
enigma_0Z
· 2 months ago
Probably has use on the Google Books project.
Joshed
· 2 months ago
Did you even read the post? This was stated in the article.
enigma_0Z
· 2 months ago
augh. Yeah, I did, but Internet blindness caused me to miss the last two paragraphs. Sorry... (And I thought I was being all clever.)
Jason Drohn
· 2 months ago
That is absolutely brilliant. Much like why they bought GOOG-411 - to train their servers to interpret spoken language.
isforinsects
· 2 months ago
You want to link to the google blog post? ktnxbye
Joseph Manna
· 2 months ago
It shall be interesting to see how Google monetizes reCAPTCHA services to boost the bottom line. I imagine they might license out customizable widgets for larger enterprise applications, but thats about it.
Any word on the value of the acquisition?
~Joe
Jon
· 2 months ago
They won't "monetise" captcha per-se, fucktard - they'll use it to increase the value of their scanned portfolio and charge for *that*, of course. How effing dumb *are* you?
Gary Google
· 2 months ago
I wonder how Google plans on leveraging this acquisition?
The leveraging is that they get improved books service. Not everything at Google is about money. (especially the free stuff)
Daniel Thomas Perez
· 2 months ago
I HATE those things!
iTbay
· 2 months ago
I love Google ...making all the right strategic investments...u know they're on sale still ....and always will be...screw ur 401k...just google it :)
pwwroa
· 2 months ago
I think it is great. And just as soon as a company has many successes and makes money everyone tries to demonize them as being too big and powerful
Matt Dunlap
· 2 months ago
I thought captcha was the original and then recaptcha added the book scans. Does google. Seems like it would be on a lot more sites then 100K
chadengle
· 2 months ago
SO is it going to be legible now?!?
Kim
· 2 months ago
The point is that they are hard to read!! Otherwise the spam computers would just interpret them as text and then they wouldn't block the spam posts as they are intended to do.
brandonhess
· 2 months ago
The irony is for me that reCAPTCHA's secondary purpose is teaching computers how to read text when users input it while it's primary purpose is to keep computers from reading text to prevent spam.
QXDesigns
· 2 months ago
It prevents bots from deciphering the text, however you're teaching only a select group of computers (the ones that are scanning books and old newspapers) to help figure out what the words are.
Purity Products
· 2 months ago
Am I the only one who always has trouble reading captchas?
Jon
· 2 months ago
Probably. It's kinda-like you don't understand the difference between different types of captcha, retard-boy ...
Amoolya V Tatti
· 2 months ago
Good thinking! Nice move! Hope its actually feasible..we only have to wait and watch..
Jon
· 2 months ago
Thanks for adding *so* much to the discussion, Amooolyyya. Really. Your insights are ... unforgettable.
samj
· 2 months ago
In supporting reCAPTCHA I was supporting "a project of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University", not a commercial enterprise (Google or otherwise).
Reminds me of the time I manually entered a sizable CD collection into the free/open CDDB project only to have it "acquired" by Gracenote and locked up.
Sam
dhavalfaria
· 2 months ago
recaptcha will then soon have google ads
Steve
· 2 months ago
Google has the cash to make more additional strategic purchases which should improve their core businesses and newer technologies as this acquisition will do. I didn't see the connection between the business and word recognition but Google has done a good job of explaining it.
Manny C
· 2 months ago
Seriously, I'm beginning to get concerned about Google having too much power and KNOWING TOO MUCH about me.
Jon
· 2 months ago
Like ... which printed letters you can recognise correctly? FUCKING GOOD POINT!!! CAN'T LET THEM KNOW THAT!!!!!
Cock.
Manjak
· 2 months ago
OMG I'm typing in Windows.. omg omg Microsoft are getting all my infos.
R-E-T-A-R-D
Name
· 2 months ago
Um yeah, I think there are other motivating factors here. Who is the BIGGEST bot out there? Google crawlers
David McHenry
· 2 months ago
Google is getting way to much power on the web. I'm glad facebook denied them when they tried to take them over, and hopefully Twitter tells them to get lost when they come knocking their way as well.
Jonnyy
· 2 months ago
Oh wow, google really doesn't make that many aquisitions, that they're going to take over the web. They just make the right aquisitions.
buckhunted
· 2 months ago
so CAPTCHA is not so much a community-not-for-profit-service then?
I have to agree with stukes. All the interwebs belong to them.
Mutassi
· 2 months ago
Agree, another strategic acquisition by Google, will be interesting to see how it utilises reCAPTCHA. What will they acquire next?
Myatu
· 2 months ago
Clearly Google has positioned itself among the other Big Ones: Don't innovate but assimilate. I'm getting a bit tired of Google. Or maybe I'm just getting old.
MahaloMarlin
· 2 months ago
reCaptcha is a good implementation of this type of tool. If the words are too illegible, there's a button to get new ones without refreshing the page. If you are seeing-impaired, there is an audio alternative right there.
captchas in general can be annoying, but they virtually stop automated systems from spamming online forms. The Wikipedia article is good to check out, including "Google has acquired reCAPTCHA. reCAPTCHA is currently digitizing the archives of the New York Times. Twenty years of The New York Times have been digitized and the project hopes to have the 110 other years done by 2010."
Wayne Smallman
· 2 months ago
I reckon Google have other more grand designs for these guys. For starters, Google filed a patent for a technology back in July 2007 that allows them read text within images, which in a very real sense, totally undermines the very thing they just bought.
And if Google have devised a technology that is capable of defeating steganographic encryption (the art and science of writing hidden messages), then so could someone else — and there goes the CAPTCHA.
Name
· 2 months ago
Great idea for a Mashable "List" article: List all of the companies & services that have been purchased by Google.
Adam Ostrow
· 2 months ago
we did this a while ago, could probably use an update :-)
Ryan
· 2 months ago
That would be awesome if you guys were able to. You guys rock! Thanks, Adam
ilesik
· 2 months ago
Another one step in controlling whole NET :-(
bhartzer
· 2 months ago
Great move by Google, perhaps the data that they get from this might be useful. What happens if Google has access to all the sites where those captchas appear?
Omayra Serrano
· 2 months ago
LOL@STUKES
Chelsea
· 2 months ago
i heart Google, i really do. but they definitely are getting scary. well, not getting, the ARE scary. they have satellite pics of the globe, they have our names, locations and preferences, and they have it all indexed neatly. i try not to think about it. cuz it really creeps me out. you trade privacy for convenience. Google is a slick super-uber-helpful Big Brother.
Manjak
· 2 months ago
You're worried about Google & not Microsoft (who ownes more than 90% of the desktop market) ? According to your logic, the clothes you wear comes with a recording device recording all you moves, the car you drive, the government is watching your every move & such ?
Listen idiot, think with a fresh mind (Note : Only think if you at-least have a peanut sized brain) before you blabber crap here.
Alexander Rea
· 2 months ago
In Google We Trust. reCAPTCHA was one of those neat "3rd party" bolt-ons that gave every user submitting their state secrets the illusion of safety. What about those that have never liked Google? When will Microserf develop their own as a return salvo with their new buds Yahoo? I sure don't mind. In Google I Trust. I drank the gool-aid a long time ago.
ahawkinson
· 2 months ago
Cool from a machine learning standpoint but does this freak you out since Google could potentially have registration and use data for a huge number of sites around the web that leverage reCAPTCHA? More thoughts here http://bit.ly/ggEWT.
ywarnier
· 2 months ago
I hope they give back the improvements in an open-source library like tesseract, so that we can all benefit from improved OCR capabilities (and make good, not evil).
tuxme2
· 2 months ago
*OUCH* *COUGH* *slaps Google on the butt* *resorts to other CAPTCHA plugins for WP* *COUGH* *OUCH*
Next: is Google going to acquire *cough* other anti-spam *cough* companies?
Ryan Lalonde
· 2 months ago
This is a good move by Google. Pretty much every website is using reCAPTCHA now.
mybrutegame
· 2 months ago
I saw that coming. Perfect purchase by Google. Any idea how much they got?
skyaboveman
· 2 months ago
Its gotta be better than Google's horrible attempt at captcha. I dread those things from google. They are almost impossible to read.
Jon
· 2 months ago
Jesus H Christ, Mashable, your readers/commenters really are the pits. Epic stupidity, awful grammar, and not much else to add to the global conversation! Actually, fuck that - they'd be out of their depth in the local swimming pool, let alone anything global ... ;-)
jaychristopher
· 2 months ago
Brilliant
Arijit Das
· 2 months ago
Great News!!! From Now reCAPTCHA will be powered by Google!!
enigma_0Z
· 2 months ago
Actually, this is probably a good thing considering how horrible Gmail's (still current) CAPTCHA's are.
allofcraigs.com
· 2 months ago
reCAPTCHA will be A LOT better than the captcha's Google currently uses. They're unreadable.
DeathByGrogg
· 2 months ago
Haha, smart way to make the web work for you.
karl
· 2 months ago
ReCaptcha is a troy horse. Yes indeed it can help to improve bad digitization… but a lot better than that it is a way for Google to know what has been freshly commented on the Web. It helps Google to come back in the run for fresh information won by twitter so far.
Each time someone comments on a blog, ReCaptcha is like a ping for GoogleBot. A human just commented on this blog. Come here to index.
Satya Prakash
· 2 months ago
yes, I also feel Google has much power on web. but the way Google is going, I am feeling that Google should continue to grow. Recent announcement that Google is trying to liberate users data so that user can carry their data wherever they want and however they want. http://satya61229.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-p...
uhaish
· 2 months ago
this move gona boost google docs library and quality,on the dark side the only thing google crawlers cant do was to solve the captachas , now they can and very easily.........
How can you be buying this?
· 2 months ago
You guys are so clueless. This has NOTHING to do with improving OCR. This is all about putting Google's javascript on every account creation page on the web, so Google knows who everyone is, all the time.
All Comments
So far, Google has the most illegible words for me to read and write in to authenticate myself as the real human input. There are almost 50% of the times that I cannot authenticate myself! I just couldn't read the words!
I hope Google will improve after this acquisition! :)
Also, GTFO my internet.
Any word on the value of the acquisition?
~Joe
I didn't really know what recaptcha was but this article explains it pretty well: http://twistedsifter.com/2009/06/why-nerds-rule...
Luis is the man!
Reminds me of the time I manually entered a sizable CD collection into the free/open CDDB project only to have it "acquired" by Gracenote and locked up.
Sam
Cock.
R-E-T-A-R-D
http://mashable.com/2009/09/03/facebook-captcha/ cheat away - google profits.
captchas in general can be annoying, but they virtually stop automated systems from spamming online forms. The Wikipedia article is good to check out, including "Google has acquired reCAPTCHA. reCAPTCHA is currently digitizing the archives of the New York Times. Twenty years of The New York Times have been digitized and the project hopes to have the 110 other years done by 2010."
And if Google have devised a technology that is capable of defeating steganographic encryption (the art and science of writing hidden messages), then so could someone else — and there goes the CAPTCHA.
i try not to think about it. cuz it really creeps me out. you trade privacy for convenience. Google is a slick super-uber-helpful Big Brother.
Listen idiot, think with a fresh mind (Note : Only think if you at-least have a peanut sized brain) before you blabber crap here.
Next: is Google going to acquire *cough* other anti-spam *cough* companies?
Each time someone comments on a blog, ReCaptcha is like a ping for GoogleBot. A human just commented on this blog. Come here to index.
http://satya61229.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-p...