<p>Some of my friends at MIT are working on a project through CSAIL (the computer science and AI lab) where people can ask a question about any photo related to MIT. The idea is to see if people can use photographs to query information (after all, there's tons of data in a digital photograph, so photos should have some more practical use than merely being pretty to look at) and, perhaps even cooler, they're trying to construct an intelligent system that will be able to automatically answer these type of questions that relate to photos. (There's a lot of really neat stuff going on with how to best create such a system. After all, the pictures should be able to give information to help figure out what a question is asking, and furthermore the questions that have been asked may be able to help with identifying and grouping pictures, etc.) Before this system becomes operational, however, they need people to ask questions and/or submit photographs relating to MIT to help expand their database. At the present, any questions that are asked will be forwarded to MIT students who will submit a response. Therefore, both you and the research group benefit: they get more questions and photos, and you can get any MIT-related question answered! Check it out at <a href="http://poq.csail.mit.edu%5B/url%5D">http://poq.csail.mit.edu</a>. Thanks for your help!</p>
<p>I want to thank everyone who's asked questions about MIT so far. The project is still looking for many more questions, so keep asking! This is really a great way to learn about MIT while helping a research group at the same time.</p>
<p>Thanks again for people who've asked questions. This past friday the automatic answering system was put online. Now you can pick photos of MIT, ask any question relating to the photo, and receive an automatic response immediately! Try it out at <a href="http://poq.csail.mit.edu/favorites%5B/url%5D">http://poq.csail.mit.edu/favorites</a>. (The main website can still be reached at <a href="http://poq.csail.mit.edu%5B/url%5D">http://poq.csail.mit.edu</a>, where you can upload your own pictures and ask questions about them.) If you've got any comments about the system, send them an email and let them know! This is your chance to not only try out a cool artificial intelligence system, but to learn about MIT at the same time!</p>