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$40K Prize for the Winner of DARPA's Hunt for the Red Balloon
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research arm of the U.S. military, has been hosting public contests with cash prizes, for the past five years. Previous years have seen challenges such as asking people to build robots that could walk from Los Angeles to Las Vegas (no one managed to do so), but this year, DARPA has a Web 2.0-based trial for contestants. Beginning tomorrow, DARPA will launch 10 giant red weather balloons at undisclosed locations around the country. The first team of contestants to report back the geographical coordinates for all of the balloons will win $40,000. Teams will communicate their balloon hunt status via Facebook, Twitter, iPhone apps, and likely every other variety of social networking utility imaginable. A DARPA representative said that the balloons will not "be out in the middle of nowhere," but did not give any other clues as to their locations.
We assume that DARPA -- the agency responsible for ARPANET, the homo erectus of the Internet's evolution 40 years ago -- wants to see how social networking might have military applications. Testing how disparate, geographically distinct groups of people are able to pool together could definitely have merit on the battlefield.
But this simplified war game just makes us think of Lamorisse's classic 'The Red Balloon' or perhaps even Don Hertzfeldt's torturous cartoon. Are red balloons no longer sacred? Well, thanks to "amateur scientist" Richard Heene, we suppose that all dirigibles today have been corrupted. At least these balloons come with a $40K booty. To the Twitter! Soon, all your balloons are belong to us, DARPA. [From: CNN]
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Comments
5
Subscribe to commentsnathan chambryDec 4th 2009 3:41PM
We have a strong team (I Spy a Red Balloon) that is giving all of the prize money to charity (Red Cross). If you see a red balloon in the sky on Dec. 5th, let us know at:
http://www.ispyaredballoon.com/
or at facebook
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=201028633372
or
text: (262) I-SPY-SPY (262-477-9779)
XenonofArcticusDec 5th 2009 1:59PM
Team DeciNena (think of the 80's song about 99 Red Balloons) is one of the best-organized and fastest growing, and we are now incorporating other teams into our web site and recruiting teams to join us if they feel they are too small to compete alone.
We are offering to share part of the prize money with all particpants who are active on Dec 5th, not JUST the actual balloon finder (who will receive a larger reward).
Join us, and tell all your friends. That's what the whole goal of the challenge is -- to build large teams quickly.
http://decinena.com
cireghDec 4th 2009 7:09PM
This team from MIT seems to be the most organized so far:
http://balloon.media.mit.edu/speigg
jacquiDec 5th 2009 12:38PM
If you don't know which team to back, post your siting to my link at http://delamagente.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/darpa-challenges-american-ingenuity-again/. All teams can come visit and claim the sitings.
John FenleyDec 5th 2009 3:26PM
Go to Red40k.comto submit balloons!