August 08, 2005
Peekaboom
Peeking and Booming: Teaching Computers to See
Peekaboom Basics: you and a random partner take turns "peeking" and "booming." While one of you is peeking, the other is booming. The booming player (Boom) gets an image along with a word related to the image, and the peeking player (Peek) gets no image (see Figure below). Booming consists of clicking parts of the image; when Boom clicks a part of the image, it is revealed to Peek. The object of the game is for Peek to type the word associated to the image -- from their perspective, the game consists of a slowly revealing image, which has to be named. From Boom's perspective, the game consists of clicking on areas of the image so that Peek can guess the word associated to it. Once Peek guesses the correct word, the two of you move on to the next image and switch roles.
You and your partner should go through as many images as you can in 4 minutes. Every time Peek guesses the right word, both of you get a certain number of points. You can also choose to pass, or opt out, on difficult images. If you click the pass button, a message is generated on your partner's screen; you cannot pass on an image until both of you have hit the pass button. Boom can see all of Peek's guesses and can indicate whether they are "hot" or "cold."
Pings: In order to help Peek, Boom can also "ping," or point to, an area of the image. Pings tell Peek that the word is related to that particular area. In the Figure to the left, for instance, Boom has already revealed enough of the image for Peek to see that it is an elephant, but Boom still needs to point to the trunk, since the associated word is "trunk" and not "elephant."
Hints: Boom can also help Peek by giving hints about the word in question: does it refer to a noun in the image, to a noun related to the image, to a verb, or to text appearing in the image? Using the hint buttons gives you extra points. [via smartmobs]
Posted by jo at August 8, 2005 09:49 AM
