Amazon is leveraging its data storage product and its Mechanical Turk task allocation service to help locate missing computer science whiz Jim Gray.  Gray has been missing since January 28, 2007 after going sailing alone near San Francisco.  Werner Vogels, Amazon CTO, has asked people support the search effort by reviewing digital images of the ocean where Gray is supposed to have been. 

This peer production effort leverages thousands of eyeballs to support the search and rescue effort.  The idea is a lot like NASA’s successful project to identify martian craters.  However, I have to say, this task is much tougher.  The resolution of the images means that the sailboat would be at most 10×4 pixels — pretty small — and white "noise" on the images makes it tricky to spot regular shapes.  I’m not sure I was able to add any value for the images I reviewed.  I’d be curious to hear from others about their experience.

But I don’t want to dissuade anyone from participating — join the search.