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How would HN attack the problem of solving a crossword using this type of tech + character recognition?

A crossword solver was what I originally set out to build. iOS11's Vision APIs for rectangle detection weren't good enough to even have a shot at it though.

With better rectangle detection I think it'd be pretty doable!

I had assumed that the AR side of the problem would be the easy bit and that the real issue would be solving the riddles.

I think that bit would be easy; but I'd probably cheat. You don't need to understand the context of the clues. You just need a big enough wordlist to brute force with. Start with the longest words since they will have the least options.

I'll bet you could scrape all the previously used words/phrases from the last 100 years of NYTimes, etc to get things rolling.

I think a word2vec guided brute force approach to the riddles would be the winning combination.

Check out Dr. Fill and maybe Cruciform.

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