Slightly random

This is not health care related. I saw this small article buried in the nytimes -

Darpa Puts On Contest to Find 10 Red Balloons Across U.S. - NYTimes.com

It reminded me of the Xprize that Kedar had posted a few months back about developing a health care system. DARPA - the military research unit - is putting up a $40k to see which group can identify the location of ten balloons on one day located throughout the country.

I don't get it. They say it's to learn about behavior of creative groups in collaborative situations. I think it takes its cue from the Netflix $1 million prize which was for a group that could improve the netflix movie suggestions software. When I read between the lines, however, it feels like you could replace the word "balloon" with "terrorist" and you get a sense of what the agency is trying to learn. But haven't we for ages posted reward signs for wanted criminals and relied on the public citizenry to assist the police and military in finding "red balloons" ? I don't get. What are they trying to get out of this experiment?

Sorry for the random non-health care post. Was just really curious to me.