Andrew Tomazos wrote to us recently with an intriguing offer. He is prepared to pay us 10% of the first million dollars in sales and 1% of the next 90 million if we can think of new piece of software for him to write.

This is no scam. Andrew is the Aussie developer behind Anarchy the venerable FTP program that has been on the Mac since Gophers stopped living in space. Currently in Switzerland, Andrew has a long track record in software development in Australia, California, London and Europe. He also has a brief cinemagraphic history in the memorable movie Effective Towel Flicking: Introductory Techniques, the sequel to which is anticipated by a great many two or three people.

More about Andrew’s offer is here but in a nutshell, think of a new application, write about it in 300 words and if successful, wondrous rewards will be yours for the taking.

There’s the problem, and one Andrew has come up with the competition to solve. What is the next big thing in computers? Are there any fields where a problem is waiting for a solution? Or could it be a new way to use computers themselves to indirectly solve a problem?

Distribution network
Two pieces of divergent thinking have made some heavyweight number crunching possible by using distributed computing, utilising computers’ redundant cycles. Most of the time our computers sit waiting for us to give them instructions. By using this free time, researchers at Berkeley University are examining the enormous quantities of data generated by radio telescopes to search for extra-terrestrial intelligence - SETI. More here.

Stanford University has a similar project which borrows time on your computer to search for cures for diseases. More here. There are many more examples, Wiki or Google distributed computing for more.

reCAPTCHA
Another new way to use computers is at the foot of this very blog, the reCAPTCHA box. CAPTCHA was devised in 2000 by students at Carnegie Mellon University and IBM, as the Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. It is commonly used to stop automated bots from completing on-line forms. The human operator has to enter the scrunched-up characters displayed in the CAPTCHA box, something computers are incapable of doing.

Then one bright spark had the idea of putting the human recognition process to good use, for digitising books indecipherable by OCR software. The words in the reCAPTCHA box below are scanned from an actual book but are too rough for a computer to recognise accurately. Humans have no problem, read the word then enter the text into the dialogue box. The reCAPTCHA system is recognising over 30 million words per day, equal to 3,000 man hours.

New ways of thinking
Perhaps Andrew needs to look at new ways to use existing software? For example, word processing puts text onto a page but no designer would use a word processor to create with. The linear way a word processor works is alien to the design process. Instead, WYSIWYG DTP packages such as PageMaker let designers place text exactly where they want into the design. Modern design software is blurring the distinction between DTP, illustration and pixel editors.

Similarly, the first web page creation packages used a similar paradigm as word processors, with a vertical, linear operation. Then, as HTML tables and frames made WYSI-nearly-WYG possible, applications such as in Claris HomePage and Adobe PageMill took over in the same way DTP did from word processors.

Our personal wish is for a new way to use software that has timelines, such as Flash and Shockwave, or CAD and 3D drawing packages, the areas we feel most uncomfortable in. But if you do have the next big idea, let us know and we’ll have a word with Andrew for you. Honest.