14 DAY TRIAL // Captcha tests are rather ubiquitous online unfortunately. One of the most popular technology used comes from reCAPTCHA, a company Google bought a few years back. One of the interesting twists of reCAPTCHA is that some of the squiggly words are not distorted on purpose but, rather, are words that computers can't understand when trying to digitize printed works.
Now, Google is expanding the idea with an even more interesting twist, it's using street numbers or names from photos captured by Street View, which its algorithms can't understand but which humans will be able to.
Some users are spotting these Street View-powered captchas on various websites, but Google is only testing the feature so it's mostly a matter of luck whether you see one or not.
"We’re currently running an experiment in which characters from Street View images are appearing in CAPTCHAs. We often extract data such as street names and traffic signs from Street View imagery to improve Google Maps with useful information like business addresses and locations," Google explained.
"Based on the data and results of these reCaptcha tests, we’ll determine if using imagery might also be an effective way to further refine our tools for fighting machine and bot-related abuse online," it said.
Google relies a lot on data it sources itself for Google Maps, even if this means people provide it voluntarily via Map Maker or "report a problem." Likewise, having a photographic copy of the world could prove very useful, as long as you can extract information out of it.
Google already does it to a degree, but it's now looking to see whether, with the help of users, it can fare better. There's no guarantee that it can, in which case, you'll continue to see words from old books or newspapers that Google has scanned but can't quite understand.