September 9th, 2007
Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk Joins the Hunt for Steve Fossett
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk, a service which uses Human Intelligence to perform tasks (HITs, or Human Intelligence Tasks) that humans are best suited for, such as image identification, is joining the hunt for Steve Fossett.
In an email I received this morning, Amazon.com said,
On Monday, September 3, 2007, Steve Fossett, the first person to fly a plane around the world without refueling and the first person to fly around the world in a balloon went missing in Nevada. An airplane he was flying failed to return. No one has any idea where he is.
Through the generous efforts of individuals at several organizations, detailed satellite imagery has been made available for his last known whereabouts.
HITs have been created to ask volunteers to help review these images and flag potential areas of interest which will be instrumental in the search and rescue efforts.
If you are interested in helping, please click here to participate in the search effort.
We Say: If you’re interested in helping, even if you don’t currently have a Mechanical Turk account, please visit the link.
Mike says:
I have reviewed about 50 images, downloaded the new Sat images into Google Earth and have scanned hundreds of square miles only to find a couple of things of interest. Knowing that the plane and Fossett both had Emergency Locator Beacons and neither have been activated, there are only 2 possible sceanarios: 1) he ditched in a lake, shorting out the Emergency Beacons or, 2) he doesn’t want to be found.
It is apparent that if he ditched on land at a speed of 60 to 120 mph, the planes locator beacon would have been activated. If he ditched safely with no jarring, he would have activated his wristwatch locator. neither has happened. Logic says that 1 or 2 must be the case. Any other ideas?
September 9th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Michael Santo says:
Glad to see you’re participating, Mike. I doubt 2) … so I really don’t have any ideas.
September 9th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
David Jeffrey says:
I am on one of Steve Fossett’s project teams.
We have been forwarded a couple of Google earth targets, both of which are clearly aircraft. They may be search aircraft, but I need to know who to forward the info to. Do you have a contact in Mechanical Turk?
September 9th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Concerned says:
Mike,
You mention 2 possibilities. There are several more:
3) he crashed hard and plane’s emergency beacons malfunctioned, 4) he landed “softly” but is now in middle of nowhere awaiting help, 5) if 4), his beacon signal watch also malfunctioned
September 10th, 2007 at 6:25 am
Concerned says:
Mike,
You mention 2 possibilities. There are several more:
3) he crashed hard on land (ie not lake) and plane’s emergency beacons malfunctioned, 4) he landed “softly” but is now in middle of nowhere awaiting help, 5) if 4), his beacon signal watch also malfunctioned
September 10th, 2007 at 6:27 am
dave says:
I tried repeatedly to use the Amazon site with Firefox and couldn’t get any of the interactive content to work. I finally, reluctantly gave up.
September 10th, 2007 at 6:34 am
becky says:
You can reach the mturk team at:
contactus@mturk.com
September 10th, 2007 at 7:16 am
Dale says:
To participate, you MUST sign up for Turk. I know it looks like you can just start reviewing images, but the checkboxes are grayed out. Sign up, and sign in and then you can start reviewing the images. Anyone can download and review the google earth Sat. overlay, but if you find something that way, I’m nor sure how to alert anyone other than the turk team e-mail contact.
September 10th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
hubert says:
can google earth update its maps for a certain area in case of fossie day after the disapperance and look for his plane just an idea
September 10th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
whd says:
Would be happy to help but the sign up EULA for the Mechanical Turk scared me off. Too much legalese about responsibility for disbursements and such.
September 11th, 2007 at 11:44 am