From handwritten CAPTCHAs to 'smart rooms,' tech solutions start with pattern recognition

Friday, October 15, 2010 - 08:20 in Mathematics & Economics

Buy something online, enter your credit card number and mailing address. Simple. Then you come to the box with the CAPTCHA, the Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart. Here, the website attempts to confirm that you're a human, not some robot about to commit a cybercrime. You dutifully copy down the warped, watery-looking letters. Incorrect. Another captcha appears. You try again. Also incorrect. A third captcha appears. You start rethinking your purchase...

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