

DARPA Network Challenge - jballanc
http://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/

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ivankirigin
They has as well have called this "facebook vs. twitter".

For the former, start a group, and build awareness. Direct the money to a
cause. Use the iphone app to post and get updates.

For twitter, post to and follow a hashtag. At least 50% of your human labor
will need to be dedicated to filtering spam if the tag starts to trend.

Definitely search on either to get random people on board
[http://www.facebook.com/search/?init=srp&sfxp=&q=red...](http://www.facebook.com/search/?init=srp&sfxp=&q=red+balloon&gl=1&lo=en_US&sp=7)

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tlb
How big a fleet of drone aircraft would you need search the US in a couple
hours? It'd be tens of thousands, but it might be doable for a few million
bucks. I think you could fly pretty high and use large telephoto lenses and
high-speed video cameras to see red dots while scanning quickly. That'd be a
more interesting project than trying to enlist a lot of volunteer spotters
with iPhone apps.

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wmf
This sounds tailor-made for an iPhone app. Perhaps Foursquare could award a
badge for finding one of the balloons.

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jballanc
I'm thinking the best approach might be an intelligent system to scape from
Twitter/Facebook and correlate location words with "What the heck is that big
balloon"-type phrases...would be difficult, but such a system could be really
useful for the next major disaster.

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ErrantX
Id just take the risk and watch for the relevant hash tags rather than
filtering other keywords :)

Besides sounds like they want pretty specific lat/long.

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MaysonL
Probably the best way to win is to deploy a couple dozen red balloons of your
own...

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NathanKP
That certainly wouldn't be ethical (as it would cause havoc for the other
contestants) and it would be ludicrous (as DARPA would obviously know that
your balloons were fake).

~~~
nl
Putting up another 89 red balloons would be nice anti-war protest.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Luftballons> :)

Also, making the contest more hostile would arguably be very ethical given
that DARPA are funding it. It would presumably provide a better research
outcome if the winning method had to deal with bad actors.

It wouldn't be ludicrous, because it would force your competitors to deal with
the problem of fake balloon, presumably increasing your chances of winning
(assuming you have some method for determining what is a real balloon and what
is a fake one)

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RedBalloon
There are a variety of different ways to try to win this competition but I'm
sure most of them leverage, in one way or another, having as many people as
possible know about the competition. Everyone should help spread the word!

We're trying to do that on Facebook and on our website:

<http://www.redballoonrace.com>

Check us out and shoot me an email! Tell me what you think!

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nl
Here's a good interview question: The required accuracy is 1 arc minute, which
is approximately 1.86 kms. The area of the continental United States is
approximately 8080464 sq. km.

How many entries do you need to submit to guarantee one will contain the
correct answer?

Supplementary question for extra credit: Let the correct answer above be X.
Suggest a solution for finding the earliest correct answer from 10X entries.

:)

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tybris
a.k.a. the biggest prisoner's dilemma competition yet.

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ispyaredballoon
We've got a strong team that's going to give all the money to charity (Red
Cross). If you'd like to help, report your balloon sightings to
<http://www.ispyaredballoon.com/> or at facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=201028633372>

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memetichazard
From the rules.

Eligibility: The DARPA Network Challenge is open to individuals of all ages
irrespective of nationality or residency.

Prizes: The winner must provide a U.S. taxpayer identification number (e.g. a
social security number) to receive the cash prize.

So you can participate no matter who or where you are, but you can only win
the prize if you live(d) in the US?

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gloob
Given that the balloons are in the US, I'm not sure that's much of a
restriction.

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the_real_r2d2
Not necessary. If you assume that people is going to spread the news in
twitter (or blogs, facebook, etc.) when they find a balloon, the locations is
not a restriction. You just need a smart enough engine to search and find
those tweets. Now, the "smart engine technology" is the difficult task (and
for sure what DARPA is looking for).

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XenonofArcticus
My team, DeciNena, will win because we have the best technology, the coolest
name, and are cupcake-free.

We are even offering to share some of the prize money with participating team
members who don't find a balloon themselves!

<http://decinena.com>

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TrevorJ
An HN team anyone? I'd be interested to see how far our skills could take us.

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protomyth
So, if it is known someone will pay $X per photo with embedded GPS coordinates
taken from under the ballon, then aren't we talking about how close to $4,000
a central gatherer is willing to go?

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labria
I don't get it. Do you submit results once, or you can resubmit? Makes a lot
of difference!

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jpwagner
now THAT is a cool competition

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mjgoins
Help the best-funded and least accountable military on the globe with some
free intelligence work. How exciting.

