March 29th, 2012

Algorithmic Essay-Grading: Teacher’s Savior Or Bane Of Learning?

robo

A contest is underway at data-crunching competition site Kaggle that challenges people to create “an automated scoring algorithm for student-written essays.” This is just the latest chapter in a generations-long conflict over the nature of teaching, and to that end it’s also just one of many inevitable steps along the line. Automated grading is already prevalent in simpler tasks like… → Read More

December 7th, 2011

ChaLearn Challenges You To Teach A Kinect Instant Gesture Recognition

chalearn

There’s seemingly no end to the clever things that people can do with a little know-how and a Kinect camera, and now it seems like the machine learning enthusiasts at ChaLearn want to use the Xbox accessory to change the way computers deal with gesture controls.

In short, they’re challenging the world’s data tinkerers to develop a learning system that allows a Kinect to recognize physical… → Read More

November 2nd, 2011

Index And Khosla Lead $11M Round In Kaggle, A Platform For Data Modeling Competitions

kaggle

Kaggle, a platform for predictive data modeling competitions, has raised $11 million in Series A financing led by Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures. SV Angel, Yuri Milner’s Start Fund, Stanford Management Company, which invests and manages Stanford University’s endowment and other financial assets, PayPal Founder Max Levchin; Google Chief Economist Hal Varian; and Applied Semantics’… → Read More