clipped from: online.wsj.com How is this for low: Elite computer scientists are using highly addictive computer games to trick unsuspecting Web users -- possibly including children -- into toiling without pay for some of the world's richest companies on stupefyingly dull grunt work.
The game links two random players via the Web. Both are shown the same picture, then have to type in possible keywords to describe what they see. If the keywords match, points are awarded; people have been known to play for hours.
What's really going on, though, is that a previously unlabeled picture collected off the Internet is being given keywords that can be used later to categorize or retrieve it.