Geek Gestalt

Thanks to a nonprofit called Samasource, refugees in Kenya are starting to find Internet-based work that can pay them triple what they could earn before.

(Credit: Samasource)

Workers stuck in the world's largest refugee camp are being given a chance to wield a mouse and keyboard as tools for digging their way out of poverty, and in the process, are helping out a series of small American companies looking to be more profitable.

The workers, many of whom have been in the refugee camp in Kenya for years, are toiling at new jobs--in which they do short, simple projects over the Internet--provided to them by an innovative San Francisco nonprofit serving as an intermediary between companies needing an efficient way to get small tasks done and groups of educated but displaced people with few other employment prospects.

The nonprofit, known as Samasource, has built a business model around the idea that there are some projects too small to make sense for American workers to do, yet perfect in scale and scope for refugees and others in the Third World. For example, one Samasource client, a solar panels repairman, engaged the company to get workers to scour satellite photos of American cities for houses with solar set-ups in order to generate potential sales leads.

And while such a dynamic may make some suspect exploitation of the refugees, a group of independent experts say that it is precisely these kinds of tasks--which can pay at least triple the wages of other jobs, assuming there are any--that can begin to help address the tremendous poverty found in so many countries around the world.

According to Leila Chirayath Janah, the founder of Samasource, the company is focusing on bringing jobs to the refugee camps in Kenya, as well as to impoverished workers in Pakistan, Uganda, Ghana, Cameroon, and India. For now, it is looking for American clients who need work done in one of five Internet-based service areas--often small tasks such as comparing texts or looking for copyright violations in pictures. "It's not displacing opportunities for Americans," said Janah, "but expanding what entrepreneurs can do with a limited budget."

Janah explained that to date, the best possible work available to many people in the refugee camp--which has more than 300,000 people living in highly cramped conditions, often for years--is pounding rock in a quarry for 50 cents a day. By comparison, she said, work done for Samasource clients can pay $1 to $2 an hour.

GiveWork, a new iPhone app from CrowdFlower and Samasource, lets users of Apple's hit device help out the Kenyan refugees.

(Credit: CrowdFlower)

On Tuesday, Samasource and a partner, CrowdFlower, released an iPhone application called GiveWork, that aims to make it possible for Americans with time on their hands to assist in making sure that the work being done by the refugees is accurate. The idea, explained Lukas Biewald, CEO of CrowdFlower, is that while many of the refugees doing work through Samasource are educated, there are cultural and language issues that may get in the way of getting each task done perfectly.

And that's where the iPhone app comes in. Biewald said that those using the app can spend some of their spare time doing the same tasks as the refugees, which can help ensure that the final product is accurate.

For example, Biewald said, one task might involve the refugees going through sets of Twitter posts or blog entries about a company, trying to identify which are positive and which are negative. In many cases, the workers in Kenya may be able to make the distinction, but from time to time, there might be something that is difficult for them to categorize. And that's where a helping hand from a user of the iPhone app could be useful.

This application of crowdsourcing to a larger issue is just the latest in a growing number of such approaches being employed in apps for the iPhone and other smart phones. Experts say that such devices allow large numbers of people to apply their excess time to issues or problems larger than their own.

No. 1 goal: Increasing wages

While the GiveWork iPhone app will bring some individual Americans into the equation, the bulk of the effort is being done directly through Samasource by the refugees themselves, many of whom have some education and have been longing for either something to do with their skills, or for the training to learn new ones.

An image of one of the increasing number of computer labs found in refugee camps these days. The labs are used, in part, as places for refugees to work at Internet-based jobs.

(Credit: Samasource)

Janah said that thanks to donations from organizations like the Danish Refugee Council, there are a growing number of computer centers with satellite dishes in the camps in Kenya and elsewhere, and that is quickly bringing the Internet into areas where people until now have largely been cut off from the global economy.

She acknowledged that some may view what Samasource and its clients are doing as exploitation of the refugees but said that far from that, it is a valuable merger of a potent workforce and companies that are able to pay people fair wages for tasks that likely wouldn't be economically viable in the U.S.

"The No. 1 goal is increasing wages," said Janah of the more than 10 years of economic development work she's done in poor countries around the world. "People are locked in situations...with zero jobs available to them. Over 500 workers in our system are eager to get any kind of work. It's the exact opposite of exploitation."

Part of it, she added, is that by giving refugees a chance to do Internet-based work, they are both learning valuable new skills and having a chance to connect far beyond the world they know.

And several experts in economic development contacted for this story agreed that the kind of projects Samasource is delivering into the hands of the poverty-stricken can make a big difference in the workers' lives.

"Internet-based markets actually seem quite promising," said Seema Jayachandran, an assistant professor of economics at Stanford. "If people are remaining at the refugee camps for several years, they can put their (education) to use. They don't have as much mobility as many workers, so in that sense, Samasource may have stumbled onto something powerful."

Further, said Jayachandran, while the Internet makes it possible for workers throughout the world to compete for projects, a company like Samasource may help skilled refugees build the kind of reputation that would make them attractive to American companies for future outsourcing projects. "That's the development goal," Jayachandran said, "that these jobs are going to lift the standard of living of the people" doing them.

Another interesting element of this, she said, is that it can help remove some of the onus of helping the impoverished from aid organizations and create an economic incentive on the part of for-profit companies to do so.

That's an idea with which Michael Maltese, the managing director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT, concurred.

Samasource "is challenging the dominant perspective," Maltese said, "which is that poor people...are to be seen as recipients of aid. But the approach that Samasource and other organizations are taking, to provide income-generating work, is, in my (opinion), a more exciting way to look at this."

And because, as Maltese explained, the average time someone spends in a Kenyan refugee camp is 17 years, "any effort to train them to access the global economy is positive."

To be sure, there are plenty of other organizations involved in outsourcing to third-world countries, like China and India. And, said James Davis, a University of California at Santa Cruz associate professor in computer science with expertise in economic development, the effects of years of such employment, in many cases, have done wonders to raise workers' standard of living. But most of the organizations engineering such outsourcing are for-profits, and are sending employment to a higher strata than is Samasource.

A sign crediting the Danish Refugee Council with donating computers for a lab in Kenya.

(Credit: Samasource)

By contrast, Davis said, Samasource has taken the traditional outsourcing model and asked, "'How far can we push this?'" In other words, he said, Samasource is building a bridge between small first-world companies with extra work and the "very bottom" of the economic ladder.

As a result, Davis said, he is "very excited" about what Samasource is doing.

He said that while other efforts, such as Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk, have come along to distribute very small tasks to those willing to work for minimal amounts, people in places like Kenyan refugee camps are excluded because they don't have American bank accounts.

Davis also said there are precedents that show that what Samasource is trying can work. He pointed both to Txteagle, an effort by entrepreneur Nathan Eagle to get the millions of Kenyans with mobile phones to do small SMS-based tasks for money, and to reCaptcha, the effort to massively distribute to Internet users the task of deciphering jumbled words from scanned books.

But what Samasource is trying, Davis said, is different. The goal there, is "reaching (out) and trying to understand the bottom of the bottom."

Some day, Davis added, bigger organizations will come along and figure out how to bring first-world dollars into the hands of those at the economic bottom rungs. But that is a ways off.

Now, he said, "you need the charitable organizations (like Samasource) to go and source out how everybody is going to benefit all the way down."

With the release of "2012," the iPhone app tied to the forthcoming Sony Pictures film of the same name, a group of developers may have kicked off the future of games on the hit smartphone.

While the game itself is fairly simple and lasts just minutes, it incorporates features that may never have been tried before, and as such, could be among the small number of titles that are showcasing what will soon be considered par for the course.

In the minds of many industry observers, thanks to its integration of a functional operating system, an accelerometer, GPS and a camera, and the fact that thousands of developers, big and small, have released games for the iPhone, the Apple device has already surpassed Sony's PSP and Nintendo's DS as the most important, or at least most adaptable, portable gaming platform.

But as developers get more creative and as its technology improves, it's likely that the iPhone will only get more impressive as a gaming machine.

The new iPhone game, 2012, features an innovative ability to call out to people on a user's contact list for help with answering tough questions. This is one example of where features in iPhone games are heading.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

With "2012," the developers at augmented reality entertainment production studio Trigger seem to have broken new ground with a couple of features. In the game, players are tasked with making their way--virtually, of course--from their real-world location to a digital Tibet. They do so by answering trivia questions related to survival, and with each correct response, they are credited with hundreds of miles of forward progress.

But sometimes the questions can be difficult, and since players get only three "lives" with which to get to Tibet, the game borrows a page from the TV game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"--players are able to cash in "lifelines," and reach out to real-world friends for help with tough questions.

To do so, players can call people from their iPhone contacts list, directly from within the game, a feature that, according to Trigger president and executive creative director Jason Yim, had never been implemented in an iPhone game before.

And while from a user experience perspective, the procedure seems very simple and well-integrated, Yim said that from a technology perspective, successfully integrating phone calling from within the game was "quite complex."

By itself, the feature may not come across as that impressive, and it has some serious flaws--for example, each time someone plays the game, they must re-enter the three people they wish to call for lifelines, something that can be time-consuming for someone with a lengthy contacts list. But as a technological innovation that will eventually make its way into any number of games, the feat is both impressive and important.

Just the beginning
To Yim, however, tools like this are just the beginning of what will soon be a new wave of feature innovation, many of which will happen as developers clue in to how to take things to the next level, and others which will come as a result of new developments in the iPhone operating system itself.

For example, he pointed to the fact that Apple is now allowing Flash programmers to bring their applications to the iPhone, a move that will make it possible for many games to now be ported onto the device, and which will make it "simpler to create basic content for the iPhone."

And new innovation, exciting especially to a company like Yim's Trigger, is the emergence of new augmented reality games that double as marketing vehicles for large companies. Already, some apps for the iPhone 3GS--which, unlike the two earlier versions of the iPhone, has a built-in compass--have implemented AR, such as a secret feature in the Yelp app that lets users shake their phone three times and see restaurant names and reviews appear on the screen over the video they're watching.

But Yim suggested things will soon go beyond that. For instance, he said that an iPhone user might be able to walk up to an AR-enabled poster, point their device at it and automatically unlock some sort of prize. Similarly, a user could take their iPhone into a McDonald's, or some other partner restaurant, and get a free french fries, all because the device knows where it is, and syncs that awareness to some sort of marketing campaign. And if that was built into a game of some sort, it would give players an incentive to participate.

One-point-five Life
To Ge Wang, the chief creative officer and co-founder of hit iPhone apps Ocarina and Leaf Trombone developer Smule, augmented reality is exactly the direction that the next generation of iPhone games will take.

Wang said that the iPhone, as a device, is moving people's sense of computing into a new age, taking them away from their monitors and letting them go anywhere they want. As a result, games will be able to leverage that newfound computing freedom and blur the lines between the virtual world and the physical world.

"I think maybe for the first time, with the iPhone and all these supersmart phones," Wang said, "you have (the convergence of a couple of) things you need for augmented reality."

First, he said, is a ubiquitous computer in the hands of millions of people. And second is that that device, always in users' possession, provides consistent network connectivity and location awareness.

Add that to the fact that the iPhone, especially the 3GS, is rich in sensors, and you have the ability, more than ever, to bring connected gaming out into the open world.

"The time's never been better or more ripe for...this kind of mixed virtual reality," Wang said. "It is kind of this alternate reality, and augmented reality. It's not quite Second Life, and it's not first life. It's almost 1.5 Life."

Wang also pointed to the push notifications feature of the iPhone's OS 3.0. He suggested that game developers would be able to change the dynamic of how people play games together, and that with push, "people don't have to be proactive, they can be reactive."

In other words, multiplayer iPhone games could offer each participant the ability to take turns, regardless of where that person is, because the device can send a notification when it's time to take action. And that's just one example. It's hard to prognosticate the endless ways that this kind of tool could be implemented in games, but to Wang, this kind of feature means players can having passive relationships with the games they play to more active ones.

Smart micro-transactions
Another future game innovation is likely to be what Seth Gerson, CEO of iPhone app developer LastLegion Games, which built the official iPhone game for the film "Watchmen" called personalized in-app purchases.

Already, some iPhone games and other applications allow in-app purchases--but to Gerson, those tend to be a bland set of offerings that pay no mind to the personal preferences of users.

But that will change, he suggested, as developers get ahold of and mine new behavior data that allow them to offer players the specific kind of virtual items they want. "You can give the consumer a voice in what they're purchasing," Gerson said, "and give them better experiences."

That means, essentially, that iPhone games will be set up to determine, based on how people play, or on preferences they've asserted during play, the kinds of items the might want to buy. In a first-person shooter, that could mean offering specific kinds of weapons or armor, or different kinds of outfits in a fantasy game. The sky, really, is the limit, so long as developers think about what the data they collect mean and use it to enhance players' experiences.

Gerson also thinks there is a future for iPhone game features based on cloud computing. He said it's too early to say exactly how that will evolve, but the upshot is that developers will be learning how to automatically transform multiplayer games into solo play if someone's network connectivity is lost. Further, he said, technological advances in data distribution will mean that multiplayer games will work better even on AT&T's EDGE network and won't require 3G for seamless across-the-network play.

Given that Apple always plays its cards close to its vest, there's no way to know for sure what kinds of technological innovations are coming for forthcoming versions of the iPhone or its operating system. Much can be guessed, of course, and developers are going to have to stay a step ahead if they want their games to be relevant and exciting to players faced with nearly limitless choices.

It also matters, of course, how new innovations are implemented. It doesn't do anyone any good when new features are rolled out if the way they're done makes for a mediocre user experience. But when done right, a new feature can be disruptive and force everyone in the field to stand up and take notice.

Because the iPhone environment is so adaptable, as it should be given that it is a functional, albeit limited, computer, it is certain that there is no limit to the kinds of innovations that are coming down the line, both for games and for other kinds of apps. But given that games are one of the most popular genres of apps for the device, you can be sure that if there is one area certain to highlight the evolution of new kinds of features, games will be where the action is hottest.

If you've ever been driving down the highway and looked at the Google Maps application on an iPhone to see what traffic is like ahead, you may have wondered where the data behind the green, yellow, and red lines indicating real-time vehicle flow come from.

In fact, the data are coming from people just like you: users of smartphones with GPS who, by the very act of driving down the highway, are feeding back information about how fast they're going to Google, which in turn is sending it back to users of its mobile map apps.

Users of the Google Maps iPhone app can get real-time traffic flow data that is based on the passive participation of other users. This is an example of mobile crowdsourcing, something that is a growing trend, especially on iPhones.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Which means, of course, that the application itself is crowdsourced--that is, based on the mutual contributions of many users, all of whom are participating in the product, and without whom, the product would be worthless.

These days, the concept of crowdsourcing--defined by Jeff Howe, who literally wrote the book on the subject, as, "the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call"--is all the rage, and there are no end of well-known examples, especially on the Web: the Netflix prize; Twitter search; public tagging of Library of Congress archival photos; even Wikipedia. Indeed, much of the concept of user-generated content is really about crowdsourcing.

But until now, much of the discussion about the subject has focused on what people are doing on their computers. Yet today, more than ever before, crowdsourcing has gone mobile. As more smart phones have brought ubiquitous Internet connectivity to the masses, more people have been feeding back into the system. And for now at least, nowhere is that more true than on the the iPhone.

"Why do I love my iPhone, which I do," Howe said in an interview. "Because I'm suddenly doing interesting things with my cognitive surplus. All these times (on public transportation)...are great times to contribute to these group efforts. It's crowdsourcing at its most root definition. Crowdsourcing is a perfect coupling of that downtime, of the very fuel that the crowdsourcing engine needs to run."

Today, the iPhone is not the most popular smartphone but it certainly is gaining steam. According to Gartner, during the second quarter of 2009, the iPhone's share of the global smart phone market had soared to 13.3 percent from 2.8 percent a year earlier. To be sure, the BlackBerry--with 18.7 percent share--and Nokia's offerings--with 45 percent share--still lead in total sales, but it's hard to argue with Apple's growth, or with its dominance in the community-developed application market.

"As Apple has so often done," Howe said, "they did it better sooner...crowdsourcing is only as effective as one's reach allows, because it does require either mass participation or at least mass viewership."

The iPhone app by The Extraordinaries allows users to volunteer small amounts of their time for the collective good.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Which is why there is a growing number of iPhone apps--both those that seek to make money and those that are nonprofit--that are based entirely on crowdsourcing, and which without the buy-in by a critical mass of users would be meaningless.

Some, like the traffic feature in the Google Maps app, are subtle about it. But others shout it out: Their developers know that the public has a thirst for this and have specifically made crowd participation a selling point.

Traffic apps, it turns out, are a natural for mobile crowdsourcing. Because of the iPhone's built-in GPS--on the iPhone 3G and 3GS, at least--and the fact that many owners won't go anywhere without their precious device, it makes perfect sense to build tools that rely on user-submitted data.

Some examples are Waze, which relies on users to inform others about traffic conditions, about road construction and about the existence of angry drivers; Trapster, which lets users report speed traps so that other drivers will be aware of them, in real-time; Aha, which mixes both live traffic flow information with location-based identification of things like cafes, bathrooms, and restaurants; and others.

"I think what it comes down to is what this device right now excels at," said Jacob Colker, the co-founder of a company called The Extraordinaries that is leveraging crowdsourcing. "And that is really to use GPS, a camera, and the phone itself."

Yet there are a growing number of other examples, as well.

One is an app from The Extraordinaries itself. Already well-known for work harnessing the collective power of large numbers of Internet users for the common good, the organization has now put out an iPhone app that lets any user participate in a wide range of causes, right from the device.

For example, users can add tags to photos from the Smithsonian to bring more collective context to that museum's huge archives; help create a huge map of kid-friendly places by finding a "playspace" and snapping a photo of it; or help the city of San Diego cut down on water wastage by reporting any city agency watering during the day or ignoring obvious leaks.

Crowdsourcing can be silly, too. Take the famous Ocarina iPhone app. With that, countless people have used the device to play a kind of flute-like instrument. In and of itself, that's fun but not crowdsourced. But what takes it to the next level is that users can look at a 3D rendering of the globe and see and hear the notes that are being played by other Ocarina users.

That's crowdsourcing in action.

And then there's Yelp, which by definition is crowdsourced. With its iPhone app, the popular tool for letting people rate and comment on businesses, is bringing the power of the collective experience to merchants and retailers anywhere, anytime.

Smule's Ocarina iPhone app lets users play a flute-like instrument and automatically submit their play so that others anywhere in the world can hear it.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

So is the iPhone speeding up the process of taking crowdsourcing mobile?

"I think it's creating conditions for new ideas to flourish," said Colker, "and that's really important. Showing that it is possible, that, yes, I can demand YouTube in my pocket, and I'm going to pull up this app and play flute into it and I'm going to listen to someone playing the Ocarina app in South Africa. It's powerful. It allows people to think in new ways, and to create the kernel for those new ideas to exist, and the conditions for those new innovations to exist."

Every day, Apple is adding more apps to its App Store. And while most do not involve crowdsourcing, an increasing number do. And that seems like a trend that there's little that anyone could do to stop. Nor would anyone want to.

For now, it's hard to say exactly what the next crowdsourced apps will be to come down the pike, but it seems certain there will be an exponentially growing number of them over time. Games will be built that rely on users to locate items in a virtual world; Poetry apps will rely on users submitting their own stanzas; Lolcat sites will depend on iPhone users snapping pictures of cats, slapping funny captions on them, and sending them in; and much more.

In essence, as with the larger app ecosystem, the sky's the limit for crowdsourced apps. And while other smart phones will also have an increasing number of applications that rely on user submissions, the iPhone is likely to stay at the head of the field.

"I think the iPhone itself has done tremendous good for moving technology forward, and as a byproduct, paving the way for new forms of crowdsourcing to exist," Colker said. "And that's what really excites me about the iPhone."

Corrected at 10:16 a.m.: This story originally reported that The Extraordinaries is a non-profit. In fact, it is a for-profit company.

Each year, the Discovery Channel show shoots an episode for the network's Shark Week. The results of one of its shark shows, this articulated beast, hangs on the wall at the show's headquarters, M5 Industries, in San Francisco.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--For some of the nearly 100,000 followers of "MythBusters" star Adam Savage's Twitter feed, communicating with him has proven to be more than just your average back-and-forth. For some, it's been a way to submit ideas that he and his Discovery Channel show costars have used for actual episodes.

On October 7, Discovery will begin airing its fall collection of new "MythBusters" episodes, and Savage said that he and costar Jamie Hyneman have taken at least four ideas that have come directly from Twitter users and implemented them on the show.

Among them are exploring the myth that dirty cars are more fuel efficient than clean ones; one that addresses the reality of a YouTube video in which a man shoots high off a huge water slide and lands, far in the distance, in a small inflatable pool; and one about insects.

Photos: 'MythBusters' takes aim at new episodes

To Savage, Twitter has become a terrific way for him to have a dialogue with the show's fans, especially since he says that the highly negative tone of the comments in the show's official forums turns him off and distracts him from doing his job.

By comparison, he said that because his Twitter followers know that he reads all of the tweets sent to him, there's somewhat of a "social contract" involved that improves the conversation. "I still have disagreements with people on Twitter," Savage said. "But it's much more civilized, and for me as a person who wants to give more value to the fans, I think about what I would want to read of someone who I admired, so I post funny things from behind the set" and lots of personal anecdotes.

For Hyneman, by contrast, Twitter, or any other social network, for that matter, isn't useful, and has actually become a bit of a distraction at work.

"I do notice that it's increasingly difficult to get Adam's attention when we're trying to work," Hyneman said, "because (if) you give him an instant of inactivity...it's like, okay," and he starts to use his iPhone.

Adam Savage often takes every available moment during the work day to communicate with people on his iPhone.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Asked why he has an iPhone, Savage said only that he is "an Apple Kool-Aid drinker from way back...and I love everything they produce."

Duct tape and much more
This fall, just as has been the case since "MythBusters" first got started, Savage and Hyneman have been scouring the world for things that pique their curiosity. Indeed, the show has taken the two--plus the show's other team of co-stars, Kari Byron, Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci--on an unending quest for myths to bust that present them with a sense of adventure.

But this fall, viewers will see more on the show about duct tape, probably, than they ever thought possible. In fact, what started as a path towards a single segment on the popular adhesive ended up resulting in an entire duct tape special.

Both teams of "MythBusters" actually did two or three duct tape stories, Savage explained. "Some spectacular stuff came out of that," he said, "and if we could, we'd just move on to more duct tape stuff. But we've got to space it out so we don't over-duct tape the audience."

And while they wouldn't reveal too many details of what they'd done with the famous grey tape, Hyneman did allow that, in one situation, "We were on our way out the Golden Gate Bridge and had to turn back because the camera crew was complaining that they were getting too wet from the rough seas."

Whether that explains the boat covered in duct tape that is now hanging from the ceiling at M5 Industries, the San Francisco studio space where Hyneman and Savage do their work, is hard to say. But the boat is clearly from the duct tape special.

And while the two are cagey about much of what's coming up in the fall's episodes, they did share some information about one or two myths they attempted to bust.

One is the idea that a prisoner could use thousands of antacid tablets to create enough pressure to bust out of his or her cell. The two wouldn't say what the outcome of their experiment with more than 20,000 antacid tablets was, but they did admit that they were able to bust through a scale model of a jail cell made out of glass.

"It comes down to how well is the cell built," joked Hyneman.

The two were also willing to talk about the segment they did for one of the upcoming episodes on the aerodynamics of dirty cars, one of the myths that came from Twitter.

The myth, explained Savage, is that a dirty car is more fuel efficient than a clean one due to the "golf ball effect" caused by the dirt. The idea, he said, is that the dirt creates something of a "boundary layer that allows the car to be more aerodynamic."

Neither Savage nor Hyneman would say what the results of their investigation was, but Hyneman did say that they were both "very, very surprised (by) the results" and that what they found will be "of quite a lot of interest to the automotive industry."

Still another future episode has to do with the physics of bullet ricochets and whether it is possible for a shooter to hit him or herself with a bullet shot in an enclosed space. The results of that experiment also took the two by surprise, particularly because, as Hyneman said, "there are some basic flaws in the concept that you see in the movies with this 'ding-ding-ding and down you go.'"

At a much higher level now
"MythBusters" has now completed production on 134 episodes, and to Hyneman, that much experience has allowed him and Savage to be much more advanced in their approach to busting myths than they were at the beginning.

"The kinds of insights that we're seeing as far as the physics and the chemistry (and) all the dynamics of what's going on there," Hyneman said, "we're starting out at a much higher level now, and so the results that we're getting are not quite as basic as they were when we started."

More to the point, he said, he and Savage attack their work with greater clarity now, and have a better sense of what the best process is for attacking a myth. Oddly, instead of doing better science, or making things stronger or taking more risks, it all begins with the very concepts for each myth.

"The most important thing to get straight is the question you're trying to ask in the first place," Hyneman said. "It seems like a simple thing, but it's hard to get to that point and, a lot of times now, we're spending much more time defining that question before we do anything else."

SAN DIEGO--It's great to see modern technology applied to experiences we've all had for years. One thing that many people share is the difficulty of getting the most out of traveling, and helping others benefit from what we've learned on our own travels.

After seeing the presentation Tuesday morning at DemoFall 09 from TravelTrac, I'm hopeful that this dynamic may be changing.

TravelTrac enables users to share their travel experiences in real time, with easy uploading of photos, videos, and more.

(Credit: TravelTrac)

The main idea behind TravelTrac is to "share adventures as they happen." This works by enabling people to use their iPhones to share their experiences as they have them. Users can post videos, photographs, their location, and journal entries, whether they're online. If someone is online while doing the posts, the content goes live right away. When not online, those posts go live the next time a user connects.

TravelTrac is built around the concept of creating traveling communities, and the company has broken down its users' experiences into three main areas: MotoTrac, for those who travel by motorcycle; TrekTrac, for those who travel on land by car, train, RV, or other vehicle; and SailTrac, for those who prefer maritime travel.

Regardless of which method someone travels by, what's nice about this is that it allows users to share the best parts--or the worst, if that's what's important in the moment--of their journeys, and for everyone else to benefit from that knowledge. And because the service allows the sharing of a wide range of media, it means that there will be a new form of collective memory of traveling, no matter where people go.

And that is exactly what modern social media and devices like the iPhone are supposed to be about. It's nice to see someone applying these things to something so many people do.

Using smart phones as navigation tools is all the rage these days, what with a slew of applications available for the iPhone and Android platforms that utilize those devices' built-in GPS systems in determining users' real-time location.

One such service is from Waze, which in August released its iPhone app after being available on Android for several months. Waze's service is meant to help drivers figure out where they are and how best to get where they're going, all with the help of a large community of other motorists.

Waze gives users many different views of the road, including this one, in which users' avatars turn into a Pac-Man-type creature when going down previously undiscovered roads.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Among the information that Waze provides are traffic flow, road reports, and warnings about where drivers might run into speed traps.

At DemoFall 09 in San Diego on Tuesday, Waze plans to unveil its latest steps forward, which include rolling out its service on every major smart phone platform (except BlackBerry) and offering, for the first time, voice prompts for directions.

That could be good news for users of, say, Symbian-based smart phones, in cities where AT&T service is spotty. And that's important because even in a city like San Francisco, using Waze on an iPhone--with AT&T as the only service provider--meant being subject to areas where there was a significant delay in information showing up on the screen.

Further, because the service will now be available on other platforms, it means that the overall amount of data available to drivers--via the crowdsourced nature of the system--will be broader. And, because users until now have had to occasionally look at their small screens to see where they need to go, the voice prompts may well mean an easier--and safer--way to get to a destination.

Waze's application begins as a standard turn-by-turn directions tool and also offers a slew of other features, many of which give drivers something fun to look out for as they make their way to wherever they're going.

"At the end of the day," said Di-Ann Eisnor, Waze's community geographer, Waze is "about a community of drivers helping to build this map."

The company is counting on one part being fun for drivers: seeing where anyone else who's using the system is.

That may be fun for a while, but the application is really about making for a better driving experience, and that will rely on a critical mass of users. Rolling out on Android and iPhone first was a good way to ensure a significant number of drivers, especially tech-savvy ones, had access to it right from the get-go. But only time will tell if the new platforms the service will be on will make a difference in producing that critical mass.

For CNET News' latest coverage from DemoFall 09, click here.

SAN FRANCISCO--We're driving through the heart of the city, cruising along at a nice clip, but just in case we hit a patch of rough traffic, I know which alternate route I can take to go faster.

That's because I've got an iPhone with Waze, a new app released Thursday that's designed to give drivers a wide range of crowdsourced road information including traffic flow, road reports, and even warnings about where the latest speed traps have been set up.

Waze gives users many different views of the road, including this one, in which users' avatars turn into a Pac-Man-type creature when going down previously undiscovered roads.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Waze, which has been out for some time on the Android platform, is new to the iPhone, and its developers clearly think that Apple's hit phone, complete with GPS and accelerometer, is a natural device for giving drivers a way both to inform each other about what's happening on the road in real time, and to learn from others about what's ahead.

The app begins as a standard turn-by-turn directions tool and then offers a slew of other features, many of which give drivers something fun to look out for as they make their way to wherever they're going.

"At the end of the day," said Di-Ann Eisnor, Waze's community geographer, Waze is "about a community of drivers helping to build this map."

And, to be sure, the map is the heart and soul of the Waze app. In the car I was in, there were three different iPhones running the application, and because of that, I was often able to see three different views of what Waze can do.

One of the most fun parts of it--and in some ways the most social--is that the app allows you to see the location of anyone else nearby who is also running Waze. And while there is no way to communicate directly with such drivers, or find out anything about them, it still feels gratifying to see them pop up on the map.

Nearly real-time
Eisnor explained to me that Waze is designed to offer drivers real-time information about the roads they commute on, generally with no more than a 30-second delay. And that's because most of the information that's available is being relayed from other Waze users.

To be sure, the app will require a critical mass of users to have real utility, and it certainly isn't there yet: In about 30 minutes of driving around, we saw no more than four or five other Waze users pop up. But Eisnor argues that it won't be long before that critical mass comes. In Israel, she pointed out, more than 20 percent of smartphone users have Waze on their devices, despite the service only being available since January.

Photos: Dodging traffic with Waze iPhone app

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One of the features that has the most potential is one that shows you the speed of traffic on roads near where you are. That's possible because the Waze service is constantly measuring your progress, thanks to GPS, and is reporting back about your movements.

Fear not about your privacy, Eisnor said. She explained that while there are some elements of the service that may eventually be able to tell users something about others, for now, Waze is making sure that everyone has complete anonymity.

And that's probably good, since many drivers probably don't want anyone to know that they're sending out warnings about the whereabouts of police or the location of speed traps and speed cams.

But other users will no doubt be eager for such alerts, just as they might well want to get photographs showing traffic conditions just ahead of where they are.

Ultimately, the point of the application is to offer users "actionable" information. In other words, information that they can use to change a route, avoid an accident, or stay away from a potential speeding ticket.

Eisnor explained that Waze's maps come from the U.S. government and have large amounts of incomplete information. Many roads, for example, are displayed as "unconfirmed" and are depicted by lines of small, gray dots. But instead of treating that as a problem, Waze instead presents it as an opportunity for users to be the first to drive unconfirmed roads and earn points for being the first to confirm them.

Similarly, you can be the first to create a new road, one that isn't shown at all, an action that is rewarded with a nice, solid red line on the map as you drive.

Data about drivers' actions is fed back to Waze, but it's a series of local area managers--sort of like Wikipedia administrators--who do much of the local map administration. Users can get new access to the maps, and the ability to serve as local area managers by building up a large number of the points that they collect by being the first to confirm roads.

For now, Eisnor said, that's the extent of what Waze plans to do with points, but she hinted there would be something more interesting in the not-too-distant future.

Licensing the road data
The Waze app is free, and so I wondered what the company's business model is. Eisnor said that the goal is to get the app in enough people's hands that there is a steady flow of new road data to add to the Waze database. Then, she said, the company plans to license that raw data to other companies to do with as they please and, in the process, grab as much of what it thinks is a $4 billion market as it can. But to users, such goals may well be unimportant, so long as they can continue to get the very latest information about what's ahead of them as they drive.

One flaw in the plan is that, since Waze is dependent on AT&T's network to provide access to the Internet, the service is also heavily dependent on connectivity over that network. And during my half-hour tour around San Francisco--a notorious bad AT&T city--we constantly lost the signal.

For me, losing the signal might end up being incredibly frustrating. And for that, or for any other reason a driver might become upset or angry, Waze offers the ability to change your avatar's mood. Then, anyone in your vicinity can see the new mood when they see your avatar as it drives nearby, whether you're angry, happy, sad, or something else.

Much of that is window dressing, however. The main point of the app is to give users the important, indispensable information they need when trying to commute from point A to point B, be it map data, road information, traffic updates, or the location of the police.

"When using it every day," Eisnor said, "you're providing value to other drivers and other drivers are providing value to you.

To my mind, Waze is an app that has a lot of potential and could well become a truly crucial application. But until there is a critical mass of users, it's only a fun toy.

That said, there's no doubt that Waze is a lot of fun, especially because you get to be part of what could well end up being a wide network of users, each of whom is willing to showcase their location at any time.

For the moment, however, seeing the occasional angry face or noticing that there are several other Waze users in your vicinity may have to suffice. But if critical mass becomes a reality, look out.

CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman drove this Audi Q7 TDI clean diesel SUV for 5,765 miles on Road Trip 2009. Along the way, the vehicle averaged about 21 miles a gallon on the highway, not bad for a car of its size.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

When I first began talking with Audi about road-testing the company's new Q7 TDI clean diesel SUV on Road Trip 2009, I have to admit that I was more than a little bit suspicious of that term.

"Clean diesel." It sounded a lot like another new term of art, "clean coal," and I think we know pretty well that there really isn't much that's clean about coal. Plus, I think many of us have negative associations with diesel, a technology long known for sooty fumes, loud engines, and a whole lot of pollution.

Still, Audi was talking about high fuel efficiency, low emissions, and an engine that rivaled--or even surpassed--the power of its traditional gasoline counterparts. Indeed, there was even the discussion about outdoing hybrids for overall performance in certain driving conditions.

Since this would be a vehicle I knew I would be driving for more than 5,000 miles, I began to do a little research. Before I signed on, I wanted to have a sense that I wouldn't be one of those drivers leaving dark clouds of exhaust all over America's highways, and that the Q7 wouldn't eat up my budget at the fuel pump.

Among the very first items I found online was a 2008 Popular Mechanics article by Ben Hewitt exploring clean diesel and whether it truly is clean in any real sense of the word.

The article's opening paragraph certainly seemed to say that it was:

"Merging with northbound traffic on Interstate 75 just outside Auburn Hills, Mich., I punch the accelerator, quickly swing left into the passing lane and pull forcefully ahead of the cars around me," Hewitt wrote. "In any other ride, on any other gray morning, it'd be just another Interstate moment. But this rush hour, I'm behind the wheel of a preproduction 2009 Volkswagen Jetta, which is powered by a 2.0-liter turbo-charged, direct-injected diesel engine that, even as I leave the speed limit in tatters, is averaging nearly 50 mpg. Equally important, what's coming out of the tailpipe is no dirtier than the emissions from the 35-mpg econoboxes I can now see in my rearview mirror. Speed, fuel efficiency and minimal emissions? These aren't characteristics usually associated with diesel-powered vehicles. But they will be."

I tend to trust Popular Mechanics as merchants of sober journalism, so after reading Hewitt's piece lauding the coming of clean diesel, I decided it was worth trying the Q7 TDI out. After all, I thought, it looked like a pretty spiffy car, and one that might well even get better gas mileage than my own Subaru Outback.

The Audi Q7 TDI that CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman drove during Road Trip 2009, as seen along Utah's scenic byway, Route 128.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Of course, I wanted to hear from Audi itself why they thought clean diesel was a technology to be reckoned with. So I asked the company a number of questions about it, including what, in fact, makes it "clean?"

According to Brad Stertz, Audi of America's corporate communications manager, there are two main reasons, the first being the adoption across the United States of a new, ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel.

"Cleaner fuel has allowed further advancements in the Audi TDI engine," Stertz said in a written response to my questions. "The injection system, with its maximum injection pressure of 2000 bar, an all-round advanced exhaust gas recirculation system and an optimized turbocharging system are at the heart of this evolution. A new feature is the integrated cylinder pressure control. All of these things have combined to ensure each drop of diesel fuel burns more efficiently during combustion, thereby reducing emissions and improving fuel economy. (Each drop of diesel gets 12% more power than a drop of gasoline and that translates into 25-30% better fuel efficiency.) All of these modifications constituted the first step in radically reducing the engine's raw emissions."

Further, he said, the TDI engine significantly reduces nitric oxide emissions through the use of a DeNOx converter, "which dramatically eliminated nitrous oxide, a leading factor in smog."

In the end, he said, "the ultra low emission system allows emissions to be minimized by combining modifications inside the engine with an innovative exhaust gas after-treatment system. The result is reduced fuel consumption and the world's cleanest diesel engine."

Picking up the Q7
On June 20, I picked up the Q7 TDI in Denver. It was an exciting moment since, as you can probably gather, there's no Road Trip without a vehicle. And I knew I'd be in this car for several thousand miles.

The Audi Q7 TDI that CNET News reporter Daniel Terdman drove during Road Trip 2009, as seen through one of the concrete tubes that make up artist Nancy Holt's great Earthwork, the Sun Tunnels.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

For the first few days, I didn't try much of anything requiring me to change any settings or do much beyond accelerating and braking. I was too caught up in trying to get the trip going and adapting to its pace. Not to mention the high-altitude I instantly encountered in Colorado. In fact, within a day of my arrival, I had already gone from a mile high--Denver--to more than 14,000 feet high on Colorado's Mt. Evans.

I was certainly feeling the effects of the altitude, but the Q7, not so much. It prowled its way smoothly to the top of what is North America's highest paved road without so much as a sputter. I guess it's that Alpine heritage.

Driving it later on more traditional highways, my first impression was that the Q7 was quite powerful, and indeed, with its quiet engine, I often found myself traveling more than 90 miles an hour without any obvious sign that I was going so fast. I suppose I should have used cruise control to prevent such moments, but I never did. I preferred to control the vehicle with my foot.

In fact, I wasn't driving for speed, but when I needed it, it was there. Passing slow drivers was where I'd say the Q7 really shined: time and again, I would fly by folks with no apparent effort. I'd simply step on the accelerator, and off we'd go.

Fuel efficiency
In the literature I'd read about the Q7 TDI, I found that its 225 horsepower, 406 lbs. ft of torque, 3.0 liter V6 TDI clean diesel engine with a six-speed Tiptronic automatic transmission, and all-wheel drive, was capable of more than 25 miles per gallon, at least in highway driving. One reviewer even wrote about achieving 30.2 miles per gallon over 1,000 miles.

My performance, over the nearly 5,800 miles I drove the Q7, was not quite as impressive. I got about 21 miles a gallon on the highway, and somewhat less than that, probably in the 17-to-18 mpg range in urban conditions. Fortunately, I was mostly on highways.

Although it only reads 1,765 miles, this is actually the final odometer reading for Road Trip 2009, a full 5,765.4 miles of driving in Audi's Q7 TDI clean diesel SUV.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Still, I was a little surprised at first about getting just 21 mpg on the open road. But I think the reason is that I generally had the air conditioning on, and truth be told, was probably driving a little faster than I should have been. On the other hand, 21 miles per gallon for a vehicle the size of the Q7 is actually rather impressive. My Subaru, a much smaller car, gets 24 on the highway.

And, with a nice, big, gas tank, the Q7 would tend to get about 280 miles or so on just half a tank. That meant that while diesel turned out to be readily available everywhere I went, I never had to worry about running out of fuel.

Luxury driving
As a luxury vehicle, the Q7 certainly stacks up. From the nice job Audi did of seamlessly integrating iPods and Bluetooth phones like an iPhone for safe, handsfree driving while talking on the phone or listening to music, to comfortable seating with plenty of control over seat configuration to a powerful Bang & Olufsen audio system, I pretty much always knew, getting into the Q7, that the next few hours were going to be comfortable and cushy.

It's not that I have a lot of experience with luxury cars to compare the Q7 to. Indeed, I'm certain that other high-end SUVs from manufacturers like Mercedes, BMW, Infiniti, and others, stack up quite nicely against the Q7.

Regardless, it was a pleasure to drive, a pleasure to sit in and just listen to music, escape the rain, or nap in, all of which I did during the trip.

One area where I was a little surprised was in the Q7's initial pickup. At low speeds, it seemed like the car would usually take a second or so to boost acceleration when I put the pedal to the metal. But only at low speeds since, as I wrote above, accelerating past people on the open road couldn't have been more effortless.

I did end up using the Q7's navigation system quite a bit, but I have to say that from time to time, I found it wanting. That was especially true when trying to find specific addresses or destinations in smaller towns; sometimes, the navigation system simply wouldn't acknowledge that an address even existed, and that could be quite frustrating.

But most of the time, it worked just fine, and I enjoyed having the system give me just the information I need (direction, time to arrival, and distance both to the destination and to the next turn) in a little micro-display to the left of the speedometer. Having that information available made it possible to devote the main multimedia interface to music.

On the other hand, if I wanted to be able to see a map of where I was driving, the Q7 easily showed that and a list of songs in the small display to the left. It was nice to have that choice.

Nice and spacious
When packing to head out on Road Trip 2009, I had tried very hard not to bring too much stuff. One benefit of that was that the Q7 usually felt like, no matter how much I had, there was still plenty of room inside.

I didn't quite realize how much room there was until I arrived home and got in my Subaru, which, suddenly, seemed tiny. I'm sure I'll re-adapt to the smaller interior space of the Outback, but for the moment, I'm quite aware of how big the Q7 was inside.

I'm by no means a professional car reviewer, so I'm well aware that my assessment of the Q7 lacks many of the touchstones of the standard review. Regardless, I can say without reservation that my time in the Q7 TDI was thoroughly enjoyable. It's not a cheap car--the model I tested runs about $50,000--so it's far out of my personal range. But for those who have the means to swing such a transaction and who are interested in getting a vehicle that provides luxury, spaciousness, and impressive performance without sacrificing fuel efficiency, I have no qualms recommending the Q7 TDI.

In fact, I wonder if it's too late for me to go back to Denver, pick it back up, and hit the road again.

Click here for the entire Road Trip 2009 package.

The four video cameras I used on Road Trip 2009 (from left): iPhone 3GS, Flip Mino, Flip UltraHD, and Nikon D5000.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

If you're going to go on the road for nearly six weeks, visiting some of the most interesting and most beautiful destinations in the United States, you'd better be able to shoot some video.

For me, heading out on Road Trip 2009, the question wasn't whether I'd be able to do so, but how I'd do it. In general, when I'm working on the kinds of stories I do during these projects, I'm loaded down with enough equipment as it is. So I don't want to, nor do I really have the ability to, carry a full-scale video camera.

The solution, then, particularly because my video needs were usually pretty low-key, was to go light, or at least, to carry light video equipment. Fortunately for me, that wasn't hard.

To start, the digital SLR I was using to take thousands and thousands of pictures, the Nikon D5000, also incorporates HD video, one of the first such cameras to do so. Then, for variety, I also brought along both a Flip UltraHD and a Flip Mino, and, to round out the collection, an iPhone 3GS.

I'm not going to pretend that I ever tried to do anything particularly sophisticated with these various video cameras--such as they are--but I did use them all. In general, I used the D5000 and the UltraHD, since they both shoot in HD, and both of them are easy to use.

One thing I did do was to take all four of the video devices to the top of Hell's Canyon, along the Idaho-Oregon border, and used each of them to shoot the same thing (with one exception: the battery on the iPhone 3GS died just as I was about to use it, requiring me to shoot a similar video later). And while I admit that using one little test like this (see video below) is not really the fairest way to evaluate the quality of four different devices, it was better than nothing.

My conclusion, based on that test? The Flip UltraHD carried the day, both for overall quality, and for ease of use. Up at the top of that mountain, it captured crisp, clean video--and audio--did so with the click of a single button. Generally, the Nikon shot really nice video, and I probably used it to shoot more clips than the UltraHD throughout Road Trip, but during this test, it came up short, having trouble with the focus.

Surprisingly, the Flip Mino held up very well against its HD cousin, and given that it, too, is easy to use and easy to upload video from, I'd say it is a winner, too. And the iPhone 3GS, while only nominally a video camera, actually did a pretty decent job. The audio wasn't nearly as good as on the other devices, but then again, I didn't expect it to be. The picture quality, though, was fine, especially since the video was shot in good lighting conditions.

Ultimately, I'd say that anyone carrying any of these devices who needed to shoot something quick would be satisfied. If I had to choose one, and one only, I think I would go with Flip's UltraHD, though Nikon--and other manufacturers who do the same thing, like Canon--certainly deserves a lot of credit for combining HD video with high-quality digital SLR technology.

Click here for the entire Road Trip 2009 package.