MacIntyre quoted in story about Google’s “Solve for X”

Google Mashes Up Eggheads’ Big Ideas With Solve for X
Tech News World  – February 7, 2012

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has launched a new program devoted to fostering discussions and ideas among leaders in the science and technology industries. The project, dubbed “”Solve for X,” aims to be a seeding ground for solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems. The site is meant to inspire “moonshot” thinking, out-of-the-box technologies, and projects that might seem closer to science fiction than real-life solutions to global problems. The program hopes to sponsor thinkers and doers that can highlight a widespread problem and present a concrete and radical solution using breakthrough science and technologies, according to Google’s Astro Teller and Megan Smith… “The big problem with sites like Solve for X — and TED and related sites — is how to facilitate real large-scale collaboration,” Blair McIntyre, associate professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology, told TechNewsWorld. “We know it’s possible to build technology and support distributed collaboration on small teams, especially when folks are invested in the solution and otherwise motivated to contribute constructively. But, at big scales, it’s unclear how you can create something that can filter out that noise.”
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Google-Mashes-Up-Eggheads-Big-Ideas-With-Solve-for-X-74367.html