“The solution was to transform language translation into something that millions of people WANT to do, and that helps with the problem of lack of bilinguals: language education,” von Ahn writes. It is estimated that there are over 1 billion people learning a foreign language. So, the site that we’ve been working on, Duolingo, will be a 100% free language learning site in which people learn by helping to translate the Web. That is, they learn by doing,” he continues.

Smart.

Von Ahn didn’t want to give too much else away as their still finalizing the service. He notes that it should be ready for a private beta in a few weeks. “We’re now mostly testing the site, and it really works — it teaches users a foreign language very well, and the combined translations that we get in return are as accurate as those from professional language translators,” he says.

He also says that while it’s currently just a project under Carnegie Mellon, he and Hacker may turn it into a company. And if they do, the countdown to Google buying them will officially be on. I give it 6 months until that happens. Tops.

I see our debt level and our politicians inability to courageously do the right thing, it depresses me. Then I read about how Von Ahn continues to push the boundaries of how to teach and i am encouraged.

Ah, in hindsight it seems surprising this took this long to happen.

Radian6, one of dozens of social-media-monitoring companies that have flooded the market over the past few years, is backed by Summerhill Venture Partners, Brightspark Ventures and BDC Venture Capital.

Other startups in the space include Crimson Hexagon, ExactTarget, NetBase, Peoplebrowsr, Scoutlabs, Cision, Overtone, Lithium, Buzzlogic, Brandwatch, Jive Software, Visible Solutions, Trendrr, Klout and many, many others. The deal sets a healthy benchmark for valuations, as well as the need to measure the fast-growing social web.

America's favorite bankers have outdone themselves yet again.

How might you compensate management for a year in which profits plunged, you spent $550 million of shareholder money to settle a fraud investigation and your stock ended up more or less exactly where it started (see chart, right)?

Pay? Sure. Performance? Not so much

You might be tempted to nix raises or withhold bonuses to send a responsible message about linking pay to performance. But if so, you wouldn't be Goldman Sachs (GS).

Investment banking is one of the most (if not the most) sophisticated forms of business on the planet. It directly creates and destroys wealth unlike any other business. It lets the other businesses worry about details such as people, raw material, production, distribution and a lot of other annoying nitty-gritty's before wealth is created or destroyed.

At some point though sophistication has to accomodate common sense and the need for a "common man worthy" explanation. The question raised by Colin Barr is one such instance. Yes, Goldman Sachs has repaid its bailout but it is yet to explain to the public (who bailed it out) why it will not continue to be a moral hazard (definition: http://goo.gl/Gx5pw). Justifying a 300% increase in base salary and a 40% increase in bonus as an incentive realignment seems to fail the sniff test.

Then again, there might be a simple explanation such as they legally and without inducing moral hazard generated so much freaking money for their investors that this made perfect sense. Maybe there is more to it than meets the eye, and maybe some one will give a common man worthy explanation for it.
(yeah, i am not holding my breath)

If so 2011 is going to be a terrible year for you.

I love how you can strip down the layers of anatomy using a slider.

Sweetness!