The Internet makes it possible for people to collaborate on a massive scale, working together to accomplish tasks that might otherwise be impossible. The world of online collaboration is changing rapidly—and changing our lives in the process. Many TED talks and NPR podcasts have helped us to understand the applications and implications of collaborative technology. In this fascinating radio program, TED and NPR collaborate to explore collaboration by combining excerpts from several TED talks with interviews and commentary.
www.npr.org/2013/07/13/197986218/why-we-collaborate
Tag: crowdsourcing
While you’re learning a language you can help with the world’s biggest translation project. This Wired article explains how Duolingo hopes to translate the whole Internet into a resource without language barriers.
wired.com/business/2012/09/translate-the-web
The Internet teems with data waiting to be analyzed by companies, government, and savvy individuals. Big data has become an industry buzzword as more businesses and governments find ways to tap into the mountains of data our digital devices produce every day. Photographer Rick Smolan’s latest project is to make big data—and its impact on us—visible. This Huffington Post article describes this crowdsourced work of art and includes a direct link to The Human Face of Big Data.
huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/25/rick-smolan-the-human-face-of-big-data_n_1912641.html
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by bad news and lose hope for the future. In this fascinating and inspiring TED talk, Peter Diamandis makes a compelling case for a bright future fueled by technology, do-it-yourself ingenuity, and a global network of people working together to bring about profound change. Is he right?
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future.html
www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_collaboration.html
If you use the web, you’re almost certainly part of a global team that’s digitizing the world’s books, one word at a time. How are you helping digitize one hundred million words each day? In this entertaining, mind-expanding TED talk, Luis von Ahn explains how a group of researchers created reCAPTCHA and turned one of the web’s big time-wasters into a crowdsourcing project involving ten percent of the world’s population. He also describes an emerging project to apply the same visionary approach to language translation.