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#captcha#recaptcha#duolingo

Massive-scale online collaboration | Luis von Ahn

TED

28M subscribers • 18 videos on Hallway

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  • Recommended by 4 people: 4 on Hacker News.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2012 to 2022.
  • Presented by Luis von Ahn, founder of Duolingo
  • May be out of date. Uploaded 14 years ago, in an area where tools change fast.

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

315K views14 years ago4 recommendations

Tools and practiceAI and machine learningDeveloper productivityCode review and teamwork

Luis von Ahn explains how CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA harness human effort to digitize books, and introduces Duolingo's model for translating the web.

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 ted.com/translate

Why it's here

4 people recommend this

What people say. Highly recommended as an informative and entertaining explanation of human computation, CAPTCHAs, and crowdsourced translation.

druckenon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Breaking CAPTCHA with automated humans”

The interesting thing about these human-based attempts to defeat individual CAPTCHA-"protected" services is that if they are actually reCAPTCHA or variants, they perform a strong socially useful function! This is because reCAPTCHA solving is linked to the digitization of paper documents. There was recently a TEDTalk by the inventor of the CAPTCHA about this topic. It is very informative and entertaining. I highly recommend it: link to this video
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vowellesson Hacker News • Recommends

On “Google's Street View computer vision can beat reCAPTCHA with 99% accuracy”

I highly recommend watching the TED talk by Luis von Ahn, creater of CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA. He calls this "human computation". He is also the founder of Duolingo. link to this video
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pittsburghon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Google Now Using ReCAPTCHA To Decode Street View Addresses ”

As a developer, I agree that captchas can be a drag on users, and I think we should put serious thought into whether or not their UX-cost is justified. Personally, I try to avoid using them on sites I build. That said, as a user, it's hard to hate ReCaptcha after hearing Luis von Ahn talk about and defend his invention: link to this video It's a clever way to digitize books (and now street signs) while keeping out spambots, and when I combine that knowledge with my affinity for Luis von Ahn as a person I find myself less annoyed every time I have to prove I'm not a robot.
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elviejoon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Could a game trick users into doing work?”

Yes this is called Games with a Purpose. It is Luis Von Ahn thesis. Luis created: recaptcha, to help digitilize books by harnessing millions of captchas. The ESP game to help tag images for search purposes. Both sold to Google And later founded Duolingo, to democratize language learning. His Ted talk is a good starting point. link to this video
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