Sorry, Steve Fossett. We tried looking for you at 38.840103,-119.316330 but didn't find you there.

This morning we spent some valuable company time to join in on the search for millionaire Steve Fossett, who disappeared last week somewhere over Nevada.

It helps to be famous, for Amazon has joined the search party through its Mechanical Turk server.

11 Sep 2007

Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) is a nifty service that allows you to automate tasks that can't be automated. You can use the service to have small tasks performed by people, ranging from looking at satellite photos in hopes of finding an airplane – or whatever is left of it – or transcribing an audio tape. Typically you have to pay people to have them perform these tasks, but in the case of Fossett it will be all charitable work.

Analyzing satellite images provide a great case for AMT's capabilities, because it allows you to execute tasks at virtually no costs. A simple task such as a photo analysis typically costs only a few cents.

So even if you're not Steve Fossett and still get lost, $20,000 will probably get 100,000 photos analyzed. Now if only we could get satellite photos good enough to track down Osama bin Laden.

click to enlarge

click to enlarge - if you need a closer view, Google Earth will help you get there