Other recently expired empires, such as the British, Dutch, French, had left some residue for locals grudgingly to admire: habits of administration, a legal system, even just a useful language.
"We live in an ever smaller global community and we probably are at a point where we believe having some language skills is a useful thing - it's what I would call a vocational skill really, " he says.
It's not just about a better understanding of communication over the ages, either, as the timeline of a language can also play a useful role in determining the order of pre-history events, such as the movement of populations over a continent.
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Ms Radinsky told MIT Technology Review that other useful websites included knowledge bases DBpedia and OpenCyc, and language database Word.
As part of the conference, the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs is releasing a series of blueprints that highlight policies and programs New York City has undertaken in areas like economic development, language access and policing in hopes they will offer useful strategies other cities can use for their own purposes.
The simplest approach may be through the technology offered by Splunk, which has its own search language that allows you to search through big data, identify useful query types, and express your developing understanding of the structure of the data as you search.
But the apps that have turned the iPhone into a more useful tool -- be it as simple as a flashlight or as sophisticated as a language translator -- have been relatively rare.
In the video after the break you can see the concept being illustrated with playful examples that interact with the program, but more useful applications include the ability for users to pull up subtitles for public information videos, or overlay sign language.
That could be useful for travelers lost in a foreign city, or choosing what to order in a menu written in another language.
Language education is already pretty good in many countries of continental Europe ( Is French or German more useful when it comes to travel in Europe?).
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