March 7, 2007 2:25 PM PST
Microsoft is holding an internal science fair known as TechFest this week at its headquarters in Redmond, Wash. The goal of the fair is to give product teams inside the company a chance to see what the research unit is up to and, ideally, to have some of those ideas find their way into products. But in some cases, outsiders need not wait that long to get their hands on the latest from Microsoft's labs.
There aren't many things at which humans can still outpace computers, but separating cats from dogs is one of them. Microsoft researchers take advantage of that in Asirra, a technology for ensuring that a Web site visitor is indeed a human. To get its library of images, Microsoft has partnered with Petfinder.com, which aims to place pets with willing homes.
Photo by Microsoft
