iCaptcha aims to make the web Safer by teaching South Africans new languages

CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) codes have a long history of being used for good, having been used to decipher scanned text documents for years. That’s great, but what if CAPTCHA codes could benefit the end-user directly, by teaching them a new language for instance?

That’s exactly what iCaptcha a new tool from digital advertising agency Native VML aims to do. Built in collaboration with Bilingo, a free multilingual online dictionary, the tool aims to turn the CAPTCHA code into a teaching platform that incorporates South Africa’s 11 official languages.

It’s estimated that it takes the average person 10 seconds to complete a ‘CAPTCHA’ and that worldwide, each day, 200-million CAPTCHAs are typed. It’s therefore something familiar to all web users and which the iCaptcha team reckons will help people learn in a way that does not “overwhelm them”.

Read more: PlayThru game-based authentication: I hate captchas. I love captchas.

According to the team, the process is fairly easy: “see the word, hear it, and type it back”. Once you’ve correctly typed the word, you’ll be given a translation. And, says the press release “if people want to learn more, or know a word already, they can simply try another one”.

It’s an interesting idea, but the real test will be to see how much actually sticks, especially if the CAPTCHA is typed in during a busy day of work.

The software is open-source and is apparently easy to install.