Luis von Ahn: Massive-scale online collaboration

http://www.ted.com After re-purposing CAPTCHA so each human-typed response helps digitize books, Luis von Ahn wondered how else to use small contributions by many on the Internet for greater good. At TEDxCMU, he shares how his ambitious new project, Duolingo, will help millions learn a new language while translating the Web quickly and accurately -- all for free.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate

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  Science & Technology

[benprobert]

These people in comments complaining how "But he IS making money!" You know what? Give him money. Lots of it. This is one human who truly deserves it. What an amazing guy.

[kommentezo]

Someone should find a way to do some useful work by commenting on youtube

[djspbb]

People should do their own damn work, and leave my ass out of it.

[GinoMtzRamos]

OMG THIS IS AWESOME

[Azzanine9]

What is thy bidding lord Inglip...

[Alàa Mribah]

duolingo is awesome !

[Dan Cowell]

If you're going to correct someone's grammar, at least correct it accurately. "Slightly less annoying THAN spam."

[EdCox88]

Slightly less annoying THEN spam..... but dont worry you can use duolingo to help improve your english.

[Eunice China]

Amazing, Thank you for this enlightening video!

[Eunice China]

"Basically the way this works is you start with an old book...like a physical thing--you've seen those things, right? Like a...book?" :)

[ninjaGustavio]

Brilliant.