Briefs

September 19, 2006, By David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

... Dr. von Ahn, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, said the [award] made him "very happy."

The Web site describes Dr. von Ahn as "a young computer scientist working at the intersection of cryptography, artificial intelligence and natural intelligence to address problems of profound theoretical and practical importance." It also says he's "tackling ever more challenging questions at the frontiers of computer science."

Dr. von Ahn is credited with inventing a new field in computer science known as "human computation," which uses novel techniques, including games, to harness computational abilities of humans to solve large-scale problems computers cannot yet solve.

As a graduate student at CMU, he helped invent "Captchas" -- a method that uses words or numbers online in weird script that one must identify and type into a space to access a Web site. The process makes sites more secure.

Since then he's created games people enjoy playing that improve the Internet. One problem he's solved is overcoming the computer's inability to recognize images.

His "ESP Game" has been licensed by Google and used on its site. It pairs random participants who type words describing a posted photograph or image until both type the same word. That word then is used to label the image.

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