Google app seeks to tap wisdom of the crowd

Google's latest Android app, Crowdsource, asks you to help the company help you by carrying out "microtasks" intended to improve its services. Crowdsource consists of five tasks: image transcriptions (mostly of street signs), handwriting recognition, translation, translation validation and Maps translation validation.

The idea behind these tasks is that they take no more than five to 10 seconds to complete and the wisdom of the crowd will help Google provide more accurate translations of street signs, place names, handwritten text and better results in Google Translate. There is also the option to report inappropriate images should you happen upon some.

Each completed task is added to the “My Contributions” tab but, as of yet, there is no reward system in place; you’re going to have to contribute out of your sense of online civic duty in the hope the other users will do the same, making your Google Maps and Translate experience that little bit better. play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.village.boond