geekosystem

We suspect a lot of you kind of enjoy looking at pictures of space on the Internet. That's a reasonable thing to enjoy, and if you do, we've got a project for you that's more enjoyable than whatever you're doing at work and also offers a helping hand to further scientific research. A group of astronomers from the University of Washington, University of Utah, and several other institutions wants your help identifying star clusters in the Andromeda galaxy in your spare time using their new database -- The Andromeda Project.

Hidden traffic cameras take all the fun out of driving. Even if it seems like there's nobody around for miles, you never know when there's going to be a camera on a traffic light or telephone pole that's going to snap a shot of you driving just a little too fast. There's nothing worse than getting a ticket in the mail that you didn't realize you got nicked for at the time. Jonathan Dandrow knows your pain, and he wants to help: He created the NoPhoto, a license plate frame that detects traffic cameras, and blocks your plate number when big brother tries to catch you red-handed.

Steam Greenlight recently released to much fanfare. The system provides a way for indie developers to potentially appear on Steam while also gauging the community's response. Essentially, if a game receives enough positive attention from users, Valve will look at releasing it on their platform. This bypasses all the hassle previously needed to see an indie game appear on the service. Much like anything that accepts public submissions on the Internet, however, Greenlight has had a fairly poor signal to noise ratio. To help cut the wheat for the chaff, Valve has implemented a $100 submission fee. Some folks aren't so happy about this.

If you've been waiting for the chance to give game developers a piece of your mind...we don't really know what you've been waiting for, as that is pretty much all the Internet is for. BUT! If you have been waiting patiently for a chance to make your voice heard in a reasonable manner that may actually have some sort of small weight in determining what sort of games get developed, Valve is opening their doors. The developer's Steam service launched Greenlight today, a service that looks for advice from the community on what games the should offer on their service, and what they can safely mothball.

Restaurant chain Villa Fresh Italian Kitchen innocently tried to crowdsource the name of its new green apple-flavored Mountain Drew concoction, letting people submit and vote for names online. Well, 4chan decided to take them up on their offer to "Dub the Dew," and results were highly educational. I didn't know there were so many ways to describe a carbonated beverage tasting faintly of green apple, and apparently, neither did Mountain Dew.

When it came to battling SOPA and PIPA, Reddit was on the front lines. Considering Reddit was the first to announce an anti-SOPA blackout and was responsible for calling attention to anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA petitions that the White House was ultimately forced to acknowledge, it's no surprise that Redditors are itching not only to defend the Internet, but also for a new challenge. That's why they're trying their hands at something really ambitious: Crowdsourced legislation.

Vimeo user clement valla gave users an exceptionally simple task: Trace the figure you see on the screen. The twist was that the next user didn't see the original shape, just the previous user's trace. Very quickly, the line barely resembled the original image, became shakey, foreshortened, and then just a collection of hash marks veering off to the right of the screen. The result is not only interesting to watch, but a commentary on communication. Like the telephone game, it becomes impossible to reconstruct the original information, and that even the simplest form of communication -- drawing a line -- is hardly perfect. So, marvel at the horror of our collective isolation, or marvel at the beauty of the animation; but please, marvel. (Vimeo via BoingBoing)

A week after Gap's new logo consisting of Helvetica plus a square was met with nigh-universal derision online, the company has announced that they're officially scrapping the idea -- as well as the halfheartedly-proposed logo crowdsourcing initiative -- and will be returning to their "iconic blue box."

Maps finally join the open source movement: Starting with Blighty and later heading to the United States, AOL's MapQuest is unrolling an open source mapping project today that draws on free and editable map data from around the world. The initiative, named "MapQuest Open," will use the new design for MapQuest, its beta mode unveiled last week. OpenStreetMap, an Wiki community of cartographers, will provide the data. What's more, AOL has announced it will be investing $1 million to encourage open source mapping in the U.S. As the OpenStreetMap site explains, "because most maps you think of as free actually have legal or technical restrictions on their use, [it holds] back people from using them in creative, productive or unexpected ways."

Dunkin Donuts' next new donut will be powered by viewers like you. According to Mashable, the company is celebrating its 60th birthday by crowdsourcing the design of their next donut in the "Create Dunkin's Next Donut" contest, with the winner receiving $12,000 and seeing their name in lights their donut for sale at Dunkin.

But they're not the first: below, 10 food and food ideas created by committee: