TED Talks: Search, Translate, Subtitle

TED has developed a cool new technology that makes it possible to search, caption and translate TED talks.  Each talk will now come with an transcript.  What's cool is that you can click on any phrase in the transcript and you will jump to that point in the video.  If you go to my talk, for example, and click on "open interactive transcript" you can see this in action.  What this means is that videos will now be Google searchable.

In addition, by linking a translation to the English transcript it's possible to have talks searchable in multiple languages.  Thus, TED is now seeking volunteer translators to convert TED talks into some 40 other languages.  Here, for example, is Bonnie Bassler's great talk on quorum sensing in bacteria (how bacteria talk to one another)  which is translated into Swedish and Spanish.  My talk is still in English only but if anyone translates it they will get a shout out from me!  With a click, translations and transcripts can be shown as subtitles so not only will TED talks be available in other languages they will also be available to the hearing impaired.