Tag Archives: Photos

Mechanical Turking for Amazon’s iPhone app

So a few days ago I saw a link to the HITs for the photo based product search in Amazon’s new iPhone app. And decided it might be fun to do some. And amazon was paying 10¢ a pop, so I thought it might be worth seeing how easy it was. I quickly started seeing patterns on what people were using to app to find many of them were obviously taken at the office and at their desk because trends appeared quickly.

Below is a list of some of the things I saw come up often and some notes about them.

For the watches, I was only able to find an exact match once. And for the coffee cups, never. I found every book someone took a photo of though. Only two photos appeared to come from inside a store.

Item # Notes
Phones 12 Three of them were Blackberries three were iPhones or iPhone boxes and 3 office phones
Watches 10 I was only able to identify one of them
Figurine / Toy 9 Was able to identify about three of them exactly
Mugs, Cups or Glasses 8 Not able to match any
Computers 8 Four were Mac Four were PC. All but one were laptops, the other was an old G4
Books 7 Was able to find them all
Appliances 6
Headphones 6
Candy 5
Water 4
Hard Drive 4 One WD, Two Lacie One Maxtor
Widget 4 Adapters, connectors, etc. was only able to find one audio connector
Household Supplies 3 Lysol, Cleaners, etc
Lotion or Soap 3
Monitors 3
Mouse 3 One Apple, Two Microsoft
Printer 3
Router/Switch 3 Two routers and one switch
Shoes 3
Coke 2 Regular and Coke Zero
Keyboard 2 HP and Logitec
Lamp 2
Other drinks 2 I think they were wine
Posters 2 Was not able to match either
Powertools 2 matched both
Speakers 2 Matched One
Sunglasses 2 No matches
Supliments 2
TV 2 Both HDTV
Video Game Accesories 2 Controller and Memory Card
Water Bottles 2 Found both
Bluetooth Headsets 1
Calculator 1
CDs 1 Portishead – Third
Chairs 1
Clocks 1
Clothing 1 Winter hat
Decoration 1
DVDs 1 It was the closeup of the back of one.
Fan 1
Food 1 Bananas (Amazon only had things made from bananas)
Jewelry 1 A blurry ring
Kleenex 1
Magnets 1
Mailbox 1 A blue Mailbox! It would be illegal for Amazon to sell one!
Memory Card Reader 1
Micrometer 1 Digital
Person 1 It was actually their tie, you could not see their face
Playing Cards 1
Scooter 1
Sculptures 1
Software 1 A Garageband Jam Pack
Stocking 1
Sun 1
Video Cameras 1
Video Games 1 Guitar Hero On Tour
Walkie Talkies 1
iPod Touch Screenshots 1

MATC Chicago Trip ’08

Group of Visual Communications Students in front of the metal bean in Chicago

This past thursday was the annual MATC Art Club trip to Chicago. In general the Graphic Design students go, but these past 2 years Emmalee has gotten a group of Visual Communications students to come along.

ViComm students crossing a street - sam looks the most bad ass

This is my third year going on this trip, my first was while I was still in the Graphic Design program, and must have been in Fall ’03. And now ’07, and ’08. This year ended up being the least time spent in The Art Institute of Chicago Museum. At one point while walking around we saw a poster advertising the Field Museum and an exhibit of mythical creatures. When Emmalee saw that she went nuts and decided we should check it out. The day was half over at this point, so most of the rest was used there. Partly looking for Issac, but I won’t get into that.

Bryan Emmalee and Sam

Speaking of looking for someone, I was the doofus who made the busses late to leave this year. The past 2 years they loaded and unloaded in the same spot, this year they had to load in a different spot and I did not catch the notice. I went to where the map said and previous years had gone. I felt so stupid.

vicomm students spelling out vicomm with their bodies

All in all it was a good trip though!

Photo Credits: 1 & 2 – Lucinda, 3 & 4: Emmalee