Phetch me an Image Please

Have some time to waste? Want to contribute to a good cause, and have some fun at the same time? Head on over to Phetch!

This is a wonderful game where you get to describe an image in words for others to search using your description - all in real-time with the clock ticking down. Of course, you get to search for images based on descriptions given by other's too. Think it's easy? Try describing an image of a mountain, a family, or a gear assembly, when there are ten images showing the same thing. With time, you'll start describing the characteristics that define an image symbolically - for example, the lady in the purple hat, or the tree with red flowers next to the river, or the mole on the right cheek of the old man.

Observant readers would be thinking - "What's the good cause?" Here's a quote from the website:

The Web is not built for the blind. Only a small fraction of major corporate websites are fully accessible to the disabled, let alone those of smaller organizations or individuals. However, millions of blind people surf the Web every day, and Internet use by those with disabilities grows at twice the rate of the non-disabled.

Phetch is a game which, as a side effect, generates explanatory sentences for randomly chosen images from the Web. If our game is played as much as some other popular online games, we can assign captions to all images on the Web in a matter of months. Using the output of the game, we are building a system to improve the accessibility of the Web.

You'll find it hard to tear yourself away! Look for me in the top scorers list as MANICLAUGHTER.