Distorted Word Puzzles Commonly Used To Register on Web Sites

Have you ever wondered what they call those distorted word puzzles you have to type in when you go to a Web site? Well, they are called CAPTCHAs, short for "completely automated public Turing tests to tell computers and humans apart." Computers can't decipher the twisted letters and numbers, ensuring that real people and not automated programs are using the Web sites. Now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered a way to enlist people across the globe to help digitize books every time they solve these simple distorted word puzzles. These researcher say that instead of wasting time typing in random letters and numbers, we should be using the 150,000 hours every day to type in snippets of books to speed up the process of getting searchable texts online. To read the complete article go to http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/05/29/blather.to.books.ap/index.html.