Have nothing to do this summer? Starbucks has the solution: The company yesterday launched its Starbucks Summer Pursuit, also called Scavenger Hunt--a game players play using their cellular phones or PDAs. The game relies on intelligent image recognition which reads, or understands, the player's responses to clues. Players will have to decipher a series of clues and answer trivia questions sent to their phones and PDA--and their responses will have to be given either in images or in text messages. The game engine's intelligent image reader will determine whether the image a player submitted as an answer to a clue constitutes the correct answer.

The game will last for five weeks and will end in a real-time final in New York in an event for which the company will select five contestants from those registering for the game and answering at least one clue correctly. The winner and his/her companion will earn a trip to Costa Rica, where Starbucks buys much of its coffee.

For registration to Summer Pursuit:
- here are the registration forms at Starbucks' Web site