TEDBlog March, 2009 Archive
12 March 2009
Why play is vital — no matter your age: Stuart Brown on TED.com
A pioneer in research on play, Stuart Brown says humor, games, roughhousing, flirtation and fantasy are more than just fun. Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults — and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age. (Recorded at Serious Play in May 2008, in Pasadena, California. Duration: 26:42.)
Watch Stuart Brown’s talk from Serious Play ’08 on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 390+ TEDTalks — including more talks about our brains.
Get TED delivered:
Subscribe to the TEDTalks video podcast via RSS >>
Subscribe to the iTunes video podcast
Subscribe to the iTunes audio podcast
Get updates via Twitter >>
Join our Facebook fan page >>
Subscribe to the TED Blog >>
11 March 2009
An interview with Pranav Mistry, the genius behind Sixth Sense
Pranav Mistry is the MIT grad student behind Sixth Sense, a tool that connects the physical world with the world of data. He and his advisor at the MIT Media Lab, Pattie Maes, unveiled Sixth Sense at TED2009, and the Sixth Sense demo premiered yesterday on TED.com — and in both places, it has fired people’s imaginations. The TED Blog spoke with Pranav this morning, to ask him some questions that have arisen on TED.com and at the TED office. From the interview:
Why choose a projector versus goggles?
We actually thought a lot about this. At MIT, lots of research has been done with glasses — there’s even research going on to put information in your contact lenses. But this particular project has an important aspect: We want this thing to merge with the physical world in a real physical sense. You are touching that object and projecting info onto that object. The information will look like it is part of the object.
Read the full interview with Pranav Mistry, after the jump >>
Watch the Sixth Sense demo on TED.com >> (more…)
11 March 2009
It's our 400th TEDTalk today
For those keeping score, Aimee Mullins’ funny and astonishing TEDTalk this morning marks our 400th TEDTalk.
I asked followers of the TEDtalks Twitter stream to name some sleeper hits from the archives — talks they didn’t think they would like but did. Here are a few replies — which may send you looking for your own favorite sleepers:
@ghostpressbed Where have the bees gone? by Dennis vanEngelsdorp was my ‘sleeper’ hit. There are about 2 dozen that I can watch on repeat all day
@LaneEllen … the talk on Fungi. I was amazed – but really had no interest when it started.
@AdrianEvans has to be Benjamin Zander on music and passion, not really one for the music stuff but this got me good
Name your favorite sleepers, either by commenting here if you can, or sending an email to contact@ted.com.
11 March 2009
How my legs give me super-powers: Aimee Mullins on TED.com
Athlete, actor and activist Aimee Mullins talks about her prosthetic legs — she’s got a dozen amazing pairs — and the superpowers they grant her: speed, beauty, an extra 6 inches of height … Disabled? No, the opposite. She redefines what the human body will become. (Recorded at TED U, February 2009 in Long Beach, California. Duration: 09:59.)
Watch Aimee Mullins’ talk from TED U 2009 on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 390+ TEDTalks — including more talks about the future.
Get TED delivered:
Subscribe to the TEDTalks video podcast via RSS >>
Subscribe to the iTunes video podcast
Subscribe to the iTunes audio podcast
Get updates via Twitter >>
Join our Facebook fan page >>
Subscribe to the TED Blog >>
10 March 2009
Pattie Maes demos the Sixth Sense on TED.com
This demo, from Pattie Maes‘ lab at MIT (and spearheaded by her student Pranav Mistry), was the buzz of TED2009. Sixth Sense is a wearable device with a projection screen that paves the way for profound, data-rich interaction with our environment. Imagine Minority Report and then some. (Recorded in February 2009 in Long Beach, California. Duration: 08:42.)
Watch the Sixth Sense demo from TED2009 on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 390+ TEDTalks — including more demos.
Get TED delivered:
Subscribe to the TEDTalks video podcast via RSS >>
Subscribe to the iTunes video podcast
Subscribe to the iTunes audio podcast
Get updates via Twitter >>
Join our Facebook fan page >>
Subscribe to the TED Blog >>
09 March 2009
Design for the minds of the future — a new contest!
Architecture for Humanity wants your ideas and designs for the classrooms of the future. Their 2009 Open Architecture Challenge invites students, teachers and architects to submit their designs for classrooms in the places that need them most. You don’t have to be a licensed architect, just submit the best possible plans and they’ll find you a team.
The plans must be site specific and the designer can partner with a school of their choice, but AFH offers three very deserving partners. Orient Global needs design solutions for classrooms in high-density, urban India. Modular Building Institute and Blazer Industries want to produce relocatable classrooms to get around traditional school district constraints. Finally, Building Tomorrow is asking for classrooms that would work in remote and rural areas of Uganda. Challenging scenarios all three, but bursting with possibilities.
From Cameron Sinclair: Register by May 4, and enter by June 1. The winning team receives $5,000, AND the selected school receives $50,000 to renovate their spaces to become more sustainable. Runners-up get $1K/$10K. If you have any questions on how to enter, feel free to email me or visit the site for more details.
Cheers,
Cameron
The competition is hosted through the Open Architecture Network that was born from Cameron Sinclair‘s 2006 TED Prize wish. To discover more about the organization and humanitarian design watch his 2006 TEDTalk:
09 March 2009
Paola Antonelli's new column for SEED
Paola Antonelli is the design curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and a two-time TEDTalks star, with her TED2007 talk “Treating design as art” and her EG’07 talk “Design and the elastic mind,” a preview to the 2008 MOMA show of the same name. Today, SEED magazine premieres her next venture, a monthly column. In the first one, called “Core Principles,” she lays out the challenge for designers right now:
Design today has to deal with a timely set of priorities and responsibilities: a concern for the environment, an evolved sense of responsibility toward other human beings, new technical advancements in manufacturing and distribution, new ideas about what constitutes privacy and ownership of things and spaces, the immateriality of new forms of design, the interactivity that many objects allow, and the resurgence of local cultures in response to the global market, to name just a few. Yet all design goes back to the same economy of goals and means, an economy that is also an ecology, and which could become the basis for a strong theory. Design is looking for a unified theory — or maybe just for a theory tout court — for, in spite of its permanence and inevitability, it is still a rather unexplored region of human creativity.
Find TEDTalks by Paola Antonelli >>
09 March 2009
The 3 ways good design makes us happy: Don Norman on TED.com
In this talk from TED2003, design critic Don Norman turns his incisive eye toward beauty, fun, pleasure and emotion, as he looks at design that makes people happy. He names the three emotional cues that a well-designed product must hit to succeed. (Recorded in February 2003 in Monterey, California. Duration: 12:41.)
Watch Don Norman’s talk from TED2003 on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 390+ TEDTalks — including many more talks on happiness.
Get TED delivered:
Subscribe to the TEDTalks video podcast via RSS >>
Subscribe to the iTunes video podcast
Subscribe to the iTunes audio podcast
Get updates via Twitter >>
Join our Facebook fan page >>
Subscribe to the TED Blog >>
08 March 2009
4 great talks for International Women's Day
To celebrate March 8, International Women’s Day, we suggest these four TEDTalks gems from some amazing speakers — artists, scientists and economists who think deeply about the role of women.
Author and activist Isabel Allende discusses women, creativity, feminism — and the power of passionate thinkers and doers:
The former Finance Minister of Nigeria, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, talks about one key opportunity to grow African economies — by investing in women and the businesses they start:
(For more, watch Jacqueline Novogratz >>)
Scientist Nalini Nadkarni explores the world of the forest canopy — and shares her findings with the world below, through dance, art and bold partnerships. She’s working to inspire the next generation of women scientists:
The wonderful Nellie McKay sings “Mother of Pearl” (with the immortal first line “Feminists don’t have a sense of humor”) and “If I Had You” from her sparkling set at TED2008:
Find these four and many more astonishing women (including the legendary primatologist Jane Goodall, oceanographers Sylvia Earle and Tierney Thys, games theorist Brenda Laurel, Zipcar inventor Robin Chase … ) on TED.com >>
08 March 2009
8 tips for speakers from a TED photographer
Via boingboing: James Duncan Davidson was one of our shooters at TED2009 (along with Asa Mathat — an amazing team). As a photographer and conferencegoer, Duncan has watched a lifetime’s worth of speakers, the good and the bad, the pro and the amateur, the calm and the completely freaked out. His takeaway: “There are things that speakers do that feel good to them, but which are not actually great for the audience.” He offers 8 pieces of presentation advice — meaning presentation of yourself, not of your PowerPoint slides — in this roundup: Dear Speakers. From the essay:
Please deliver your speech to the crowd, not the screen. Your slides aren’t the recipient of your presentation. Your audience is. Face them. Address them.
Please take off your name tag. This is self-explanatory enough.
See more of Duncan and Asa’s work in the TED2009 photo galleries >>
Find stories on the TED Blog about:
Become a Fan of TED
on Facebook
Follow TED on Twitter:
@TEDNews | @TEDTalks
Subscribe to TED RSS feeds:
TED Blog | More RSS Options
