Gizmodo: competition

DARPA Network Challenge: Win $40,000 by Finding 10 Red Weather Balloons

Danny Allen — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:11:56 EDT

To celebrate the Web's 40th anniversary, DARPA wants to explore social networking's role in time-critical communication. It's offering $40,000 in hard cash to the first entrant who finds ten 8-foot weather balloons located at fixed locations around the U.S.

Registration begins on December 1, and the balloons will appear on December 5. The first to submit the latitude and longitude of all ten balloons walks away with the cash. Pretty cool. Full rules at: [DARPA via BoingBoing]

Android Developer Challenge 2 Kicks Off, $2M Up For Grabs

Danny Allen — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:00:00 EDT

But you'll have to act fast: Submissions close August 31. Last year's comp unearthed a bunch of cool apps (and location-based services were big), so I'm looking forward to seeing what pops up in September for public judging.

Users of Android devices will be able to grab a special judging app from the Android Market to download, test, and rank entries. The top 20 programs in the following categories (200 in total) go into the second round:

• Education/Reference
• Games: Casual/Puzzle
• Games: Arcade/Action
• Social Networking
• Lifestyle
• Productivity/Tools
• Media
• Entertainment
• Travel
• Misc

In the second round (roughly October), Android users will make up 40% of the vote, with a Google-selected judging panel accounting for 60% of the score. Winners will be announced sometime in November, while $USD prizes will be distributed as follows:

For each of the 10 categories:

• 1st prize: $100,000
• 2nd prize: $50,000
• 3rd prize: $25,000

Overall (across all categories)
• 1st prize: $150,000 (meaning the overall winner will receive $250,000)
• 2nd prize: $50,000 (meaning the 2nd prize winner will receive up to $150,000)
• 3rd prize: $25,000 (meaning the 3rd prize winner will receive up to $125,000)

Full details at the Android Developers Blog. What are you waiting for? [Android]

Bacarobo 2008, The Stupid Robot Championship

Mark Wilson — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:40:00 EST

The Bacarobo competition pits six fearsome robots against one another that meet a few basic requirements: They must be mechanical, funny, and completely useless to society.

This 10-minute video from their 2008 championships is admittedly a bit long, but there are some real gem moments to see, highlighted in this makeshift table of contents. The opening is pure Iron Chef absurdity, and I enjoyed the bolded stuff the most:

0:30 - Hat Detects Nervousness
1:48 - YKRN Face Detecting Bot and Winner of Bacarobo
3:30 - Perverted Joke Robots (in Japanese)
4:08 - The Thinking Robot
6:20 - Dancing Robots
7:48 - "Lazy Robots"
9:40 - Winner Crowned

Because we all know that 10 minutes of internet video is like watching a Lawrence of Arabia/Gettysburg double feature. [via Trends in Japan]

Sony Japan Releases SDK For Bravia TV Apps

Elaine Chow — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:30:00 EDT

Sony became the latest to jump on the app trend bandwagon, but not with a product you'd automatically equate with downloading itty bitty widgets. The company has released an App development kit for its line of Bravia television sets. It expects people to create things like small multiplayer online games, weather and news data aggregators and anything else you can program onto 1.3MB of memory.

To inspire developers, Sony's holding a competition for the best application. For your troubles, you could win either a Bravia 40-inch LCD TV, a Vaio TypeC laptop, or a Blu-Ray player, a Cybershot DSC-T77 or one of their new Walkman music players. Just get your app in before January 8th, 2009. [Sony Insider]

LightFlash Phone Projects Photos, Isn't Rocket Powered

Kit Eaton — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:09:59 EDT

Appearances to the contrary, Peter Zsolt Koren's concept cellphone LightFlash doesn't conceal a brace of mini rocket engines inside. Disappointing as that may be, those tube fittings really contain a camera and a micro-projector. These work together in a neat way: you can gesture on the projected image and the phone will respond. Failing that, the touchscreen doubles as a touchpad, as well as a more normal phone keypad. We're not sure about the "project your emoticons onto someone else" idea— sounds like a lawsuit nightmare —but the overall design gets a thumbs up. Unsurprising, then, that it placed second in the "Hello Future 2014 mobile phone design" competition. [Tuvie]

Global St. Patrick's Day Drunk Dialing Competition Starts Tonight!

Sean Fallon — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:00:30 EDT

This is it folks. You have been training your whole adult life for what is about to go down starting tonight at midnight. I'm speaking of course about the 4th Annual St. Patrick's Day Drunk Dialing Competition. All you have to do is get drunk (way ahead of you) and call up the number that the organizers have set up. The funniest message will win up to $1000 in ad revenue from their website. Realistically, you probably won't see much of that money, but drunken college students will surely spin stories about your legend for years to come. Hit the link for the full details. [stpatricksdrunkdial via Laptop Mag]

Hackable Zune to Dominate the World, Kill iPod?

Charlie White — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 11:11:05 EST

The Microsoft Zune is a typical 1.0 release for the Redmond giant—clunky and plagued with problems—but could it emerge as a big hit and the anti-iPod? ComputerWorld's Mike Elgan thinks allowing hackability in the Zune could thrust it to the top of the marketplace, giving it customizability and enhancing its popularity. While he levels some harsh haterage at the first Zune, he points out lots of Zune hacks already emerging. He also sees the possibility of a newer, looser Zune prevailing in the DAP market, predicting that "Microsoft could create a Zune that's more desirable than the iPod," somehow dominating the market like PCs have slam-dunked Macs in market share.

His suggestions for Zune hacking, leading to its world domination, after the jump.

Let people transform the Zune into an Xbox game controller, a TV remote control, a portable presentation device, a wireless PC hard drive or a Vista gadget emulator. Give me a wireless keyboard and a Zune version of Pocket Outlook, and I'll never buy another iPod. Build ClearType into Zune and make it the ultimate eBook reader (and sell eBooks on Zune Marketplace).

But Mike, so far, the Zune is just as locked down as the iPod is, maybe even more so. Plus, the iPod has gotten such a tremendous head start here. By the time the next version of the Zune is released, Apple will have an iPhone and a widescreen video iPod on the market. That's going to be awfully hard to catch up to, isn't it? – Charlie White

Zune: So you want to be an iPod killer [ComputerWorld]