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Penn State researchers have announced an upgraded CAPTCHA approach, based on images.
First, you have to figure out where the overlapping images' borders are, so you can find the center of one of them and click near it. The images have been distorted and pixillated somewhat.
The fact that this is difficult speaks to how hard it is to track photo usage in layered composite images, which we see a lot of every day.

Having done that, you now must associate another image with a term that would logically apply to it. The example shown is a garlic bulb, in case you can't tell - so the term from the list that's most applicable is "vegetable".
Now, this bears a striking resemblance to keywording, which is a workflow challenge for all of us in the graphics industry. So if anyone cracks this (and frankly I hope they can't because I need a working CAPTCHA more than I need automated keywording) I have work for them...
Link
via Slashdot Post
Background on the project and team here

uiGarden.net has this interesting Usability Report on the iPhone.
Apparently texting on your Blackberry (or other device with physical keys for the letters) is more accurate.
Favorite quote:
On feature of the popup keyboard on the iPhone is the drag and lift feature which is said to reduce errors. Unfortunately not one user discovered this feature.
uiGarden.net post
Related evaluation of the iPhone against two other devices
UserCentric, the folks who did the usability testing

Fixmyphotos is a site that allows you to upload photos for retouching, at low rates. The work is apparently done at least in part by human operators, and the turnaround is 48 hrs.
They're in testing on their updated services, and Guy Kawasaki has instructions on how to try out the service (requires you to use Internet Explorer, unfortunately)
Guy's write-up - how to test the site

Drupal, our favorite CMS (it powers this blog) has a new hi-profile case study - the Sony/BMG MyPlay site.
From the case study:
Myplay.com is a redesign and re-branding of Sony's Musicbox site which showcases SonyBMG's artists, providing free access to their videos, music and photos. Users can create lists of their favorite artists as well as review their music and embed widgets of their favorite artist's content into other sites.
This case study's particularly good, in that it details how various site features were accomplished in Drupal. Well worth a quick read.
Case study on Drupal.org
New Sony site