Crowdsourcing language translations with Duolingo

Luis von Ahn is an associate professor in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the inventor of CAPTCHA and RECAPTCHA, CAPTCHA is a annoying method used on many websites to check if a form is filled by a human, it is based on the recognition of distorted letters. RECAPTCHA is a much more interesting project, it transforms CAPTCHA in a crowdsourced books digitalization project. Instead of computer generated letters, users are asked to decode distorted words coming from old books.

In TED talk “Luis von Ahn: Massive-scale online collaboration” the researcher presented duolingo his new crowdsourcing project. The goal is to let the crowd translate wikipedia pages. I found the web site very nice and professional, it’s easy to use and you can really learn some spanish, english or german with a step-by-step approach.

I already knew many interesting crowdsourcing projects, most of them are disguised as videogames, check Reality is Broken for some examples. What I found amazing in duolingo is the idea of giving away a program to learn languages in exchange of free translations and I love the way the 2 tasks are perfectly integrated.

Watch TED talk “Luis von Ahn: Massive-scale online collaboration”

Try duolingo

I Owe You project

IOU is a project aimed at engaging people in the production and distribution process of clothing. Every clothe has a unique identifier usefull to get information about the weaver that handwoven the fabric in India and the artisan that produced the finl piece in Europe. Buyers are invited to share a picture of themselves wearing the clothe to complete the story. That’s not the first project that tries to make a connection between producer and consumer, but I find it interesting also for the way the push the concept in every aspect of the proposal, such as the way staff is presented or the social sharing selling mechanism.

Webcam based collaborative projects

Since the widespread diffusion of webcams embed in laptop and desktop computers there are many web-based projects asking people to take part with their own images.

Persuade people in front of a computer to turn on the webcam and gift his image to your cause is not that obvious as it appears.

Devuelve el saludo a aznar

The project asks people to return the greating to Aznar. It is a response to the hand gesture done by the former spanish PM to protesting students at Oviedo University. Here the full story.

Now, Take a Bow

To celebrate the 10th anniversary if KORT film festival, the graphic designer Jonathan Puckey made this interactive project asking people to play a few seconds rehearsal in front of their webcam. nowtakeabow.com

From the same author, Jonathan Puckey, a similar project is

One frame of fame

Fans of C-Mon & Kypski music band are asked to replicate a pose that will be featured as a frame of band video “More is less”. oneframeoffame.com

Lost Valentinos Nightmoves AR video

If the previous 3 projects ask users to show their faces the Lost Valentinos’s is quite the opposite. Using augmented reality visual markers and cutted out videos the project ask people to create a set for the band videoclip. Here is a youtube video explaining the project. lostvalentinos.com