In an ingenious geek-out that’s almost too perfectly suited for TED, designer Ken Moore presents a much-anticipated hack of the Nintendo Wii Remote: a theremin. It seems to be a nearly serendipitous merger of TEDTalks by thereminist Pamelia Kurstin and Wii hacker Johnny Lee. Has anyone seen other hybridized Ideas Worth Spreading (coincidental or not)? […]
We’re not posting a new TED Talk today or tomorrow — it’s Thanksgiving Day in the United States. But here are some talks we’re excited to post in December: Next week: Richard Preston on the giant trees You might know Richard Preston from his groundbreaking reportage on disease, like The Hot Zone and his new […]
The blogosphere is all a-blog of a new cringe-inducing spoof published at McSweeney’s. Its title, “Atlas Shrugged Updated for the Current Financial Crisis” sums it up well enough. But here’s an excerpt: “I heard the thugs in Washington were trying to take your Rearden metal at the point of a gun,” she said. “Don’t let […]
Ad man Andy Hobsbawm shows iconic images from the media that use creative thinking to help society change for the better. Then he shares a fresh ad campaign about going green — and some of the fringe benefits. (Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 4:00.) Watch Andy Hobsbawm’s talk on TED.com, where you […]
Via the Great Beyond, an amazing undersea rescue that hits so many TED sweet spots: robots! energy! underwater astonishment! Watch what happens when a big, beautiful fish gets stuck in an undersea oil platform:
From design blog Brand New comes word of Women of Design, a new book that celebrates female designers: In publications, conferences and other public realms, women designers tend to be outnumbered by their male counterparts whose appearances, work and achievements are constantly in the spotlight. Luckily, it’s a reversing trend … [The book attempts to] […]
Fans of Jeff Han‘s touchscreen will enjoy this demo of ILoveSketch, highly intuitive new software that enables designers to create fluid 3D sketches through a gesture-driven interface: ILoveSketch from Seok-Hyung Bae on Vimeo. Via Kevin Kelly at The Technium.
At the Taste3 conference in Napa, chef Dan Barber tells the story of a small farm in Spain that has found a humane way to produce foie gras. Raising his geese in a natural environment, farmer Eduardo Sousa embodies the kind of food production Barber believes in. (Recorded September 2008 in Napa, California. Duration: 20:24.) […]
Technologist and futurist Bill Joy shares several big worries for humanity — and several big hopes in the fields of health, education and future tech. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, California. Duration: 19:02.) Watch Bill Joy’s talk from TED2006 on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find […]
Sometimes when you’re busy peering into space, space comes to you. This chance footage of a huge meteor rocketing through the sky is just awesome: Many lucky witnesses were also treated to a sonic boom. Did any Canadian or northern-U.S. TEDsters see this in person? (Or hear odd noises on your mobile devices around 5pm […]
Update: Last night, WITNESS’ 4th annual Focus for Change benefit honored TED’s Chris Anderson. WITNESS was founded by Peter Gabriel to harness the power of video to fight injustice — by putting cameras in the hands of oppressed people and helping them become firsthand witnesses. Watch Peter Gabriel’s TEDTalk about his work with WITNESS — […]
To present BusinessWeek writer Steve Hamm’s new book, The Race for Perfect: Inside the Quest to Design the Ultimate Portable Computer, his own magazine asked the artist Joseph Lambert to turn one chapter into a graphic adaptation. Lambert illustrates the role of Alan Kay, “whose ideas shaped the development of today’s laptops, handhelds, and smartphones.” […]
At Serious Play 2008, astrophysicist George Smoot shows stunning new images from deep-space surveys, and prods us to ponder how the cosmos — with its giant webs of dark matter and mysterious gaping voids — got built this way. (Recorded May 2008 in Pasadena, California. Duration: 19:00.) Watch George Smoot’s talk from Serious Play […]
You have 8 hours left to contribute to the Preamble of the Charter for Compassion. Tonight at midnight EST, writing begins on the next phase: the Affirmations. In the Affirmations section of the Charter, you can contribute by writing short descriptions of the eight core elements of compassion: Compassion as empathy, not pity. Compassion as […]
Zambia-born filmmaker Franco Sacchi tours us through Nollywood, Nigeria’s booming film industry (said to be the world’s 3rd largest). Listen for stories of guerrilla filmmaking and brilliance under pressure from crews that can shoot a full-length feature in a week. (Recorded June 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania. Duration: 17:34.) Watch Franco Sacchi’s talk from TEDGlobal […]
This past weekend, we added a captcha system to TED.com’s “Send this user an email” feature. We’re using reCaptcha, which harnesses the mighty power of captcha to help digitize old books and newspapers. Right now, reCaptcha is decoding texts from the Internet Archive (watch Brewster Kahle talk about the Internet Archive on TED.com). We take […]