DARPA and the Red Balloons

December 2, 2009 · Posted in Internet Marketing, Life Happens, Random Stuff, The Internet 

A little something-something to tickle the fancy of  social media geeks out there. If you have not heard of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), they are the central research and development organization for the United States Department of Defense and are essentially the key organization responsible for creating the Internet, and no, Al Gore was not the head of DARPA 40 years ago when the concept of digital inter-connectivity was being developed ;-) … And yes, it is the same the “Intranetsh” George Dubya Bush likes to quote…  :-D

QUICK UPDATE: MIT STUDENTS WIN THE COMPETITION (http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/12/06/MIT-students-win-military-balloon-hunt/UPI-82141260114716/)

Anyway, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet, DARPA has announced the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that will explore the roles the Internet and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems.

The challenge is to be the first to submit the locations of 10 moored, 8-foot, red, weather balloons at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States. The balloons will be in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roads.

You can learn more about the challenge by going here: http://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/

It is too late to sign-up since the challenge is happening this Saturday, but if you got plenty of time in your hands or got nothing else better to do just look outside your window and see if you’ll spot any of these balloons and perhaps help out some of the competitors. Wikipedia has a list of three known competitors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Network_Challenge

You can visit their website to see how you can help them out.

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