This morning, Virgin CEO Sir Richard Branson offered the first public look at the rocketship expected to make space tourism a reality. The mock-up — revealed at WIRED/NextFest in New York — is based on the design of SpaceShipOne, the Ansari X-Prize-winning craft designed by Burt Rutan (TED2006). (Watch for Rutan’s TEDTalk later this fall.) […]
Even if there weren’t two TEDsters in the running, we’d be keeping a close watch on the race to succeed Kofi Annan as U.N. Secretary General, when he steps down at year’s end. One in a series of informal votes takes place today at UN Headquarters. In today’s New York Times, an Op/ED piece titled […]
Dan Gilbert is a psychology professor at Harvard, and author of Stumbling on Happiness. In this memorable talk, filmed at TED2004, he demonstrates just how poor we humans are at predicting (or understanding) what will make us happy. (Recorded February 2004 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 22:02) Get TED delivered: Subscribe to the TEDTalks video […]
Barry Schwartz is a sociology professor at Swarthmore and author of The Paradox of Choice. In this talk, he persuasively explains how and why the abundance of choice in modern society is actually making us miserable. (Recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 20:22) Get TED delivered: Subscribe to the TEDTalks video podcast via […]
Last week, the list of potential successors to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan – he will step down at the end of his second five-year term, on December 31st – seemed to have narrowed down to two names: South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon and the current Undersecretary-General Shashi Tharoor, from India – a TEDster: he […]
Last week, Apple announced that its complete line of video iPods can finally handle Standard Definition (SD) television resolution of 640×480 pixels. We’re thrilled to announce the first batch of TEDTalks SD – four times the image size of regular TEDTalks – optimized for viewing on your computer – or playing back through your television. […]
Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and best-selling author of The Tipping Point and Blink. In this talk, filmed at TED2004, he explains what every business can learn from spaghetti sauce. (Recorded February 2004 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 18:15) Get TED delivered: Subscribe to the TEDTalks video podcast via RSS […]
Steven Levitt is an economics professor at the University of Chicago and the best-selling author of Freakonomics. In this talk, filmed at TED2004, he studies data from an inner-city gang to examine economic principles at work in the real world. (Recorded February 2004 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 22:00) Get TED delivered: Subscribe to the […]
San Francisco investor Peter A. Thiel (co-founder of PayPal) is putting $3.5 million into the antiaging research pioneered by TED speaker Aubrey de Grey (see past posts on him). The money will come in annual installments of $500,000 over the next three years for a pilot project, plus matching money for every dollar donated by […]
For a long time, TEDPrize winner Cameron Sinclair has encapsulated his philosophy in a slogan that recently turned into the title of his inspiring book: "Design like you give a damn" (see Cameron’s speech on TEDtalks – or if you are in New York see him live this coming Wednesday 20 at the NYPL). Now, […]
To TEDsters, Google.org – the philanthropic arm of Google – is mostly known for the inspiring speech its director Larry Brilliant gave at TED last february, outlining a very compelling plan for an Internet-based system to rapidly detect disease outbreaks (see the original post from the conference or Brilliant’s TEDprize speech in video). A story […]
Richard Dawkins is Oxford University’s “Professor for the Public Understanding of Science.” Author of the landmark 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, he’s a brilliant (and trenchant) evangelist for Darwin’s ideas. In this talk, titled “Queerer Than We Suppose: The strangeness of science,” he suggests that the true nature of the universe eludes us, because the […]
Legendary physicist David Deutsch is author of The Fabric of Reality and the leading proponent of the multiverse intrepretation of quantum theory — the astounding idea that our universe is constantly spawning countless numbers of parallel worlds. In this rare (and delightfully engaging) public appearance, he weaves a complex and captivating argument placing the study […]
<!––>TEDPrize winner, Cameron Sinclair, and Architecture for Humanity co-founder, Kate Stohr, will be in NYC next week for the celebration of the launch of their book – Design Like You Give a Damn. They’re being interviewed by John Hockenberry at the New York Public Library on September 20th. A similar event is being planned for […]
At TED2006, Helen Fisher delivered an unforgettable talk (now available online) focusing largely on love: Its evolution, its vital importance to human society, and the science behind the stages of lust, infatuation, and long-term attachment. Inspired by Fisher — and, well, slightly disturbed by the biochemical basis of it all — singer/songwriter Jill Sobule penned […]
Eve Ensler is the playwright of The Vagina Monologues and The Good Body, and founder of the global movement V-Day, which is working to end violence against women and girls. In this presentation, from TED2004, she performs an excerpt from “The Vagina Monologues” and explains how the show took on a life of its own. […]