Entries from TED Blog tagged with 'TED2007'
06 July 2009
The design genius of Charles + Ray Eames: Eames Demetrios on TED.com
The legendary design team Charles and Ray Eames made films, houses and classic midcentury modern furniture. Eames Demetrios, their grandson, shows rarely seen films and archival footage in a lively, loving tribute to their creative process. Demetrios also talks about how his own work has been influenced by his grandparents' legacy. (Recorded at TED2007, February 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 15:09)
Twitter URL: http://on.ted.com/1O
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08 June 2009
Erin McKean launches Wordnik -- the revolutionary online dictionary
Today, Erin McKean realized the idea behind her 2007 TEDTalk with the launch of Wordnik.com, a dictionary that evolves as language does. On Wordnik, users can add new words and meanings, tag words with related expressions, see real-time search results for words from Twitter and Flickr, discover how many Scrabble points each word is worth -- all on one page.
Here's what it looks like when we search the word "blog":
To further understand this amazing project and its implications, the TEDBlog talked with Erin this afternoon. In the middle of a hectic launch day, she gave the following excited interview:
We love Wordnik here at the TED office. Some of us may have spent the majority of the morning playing with it.
That’s great! We’ve been joking that we’d like to be so addictive that IP managers ban us.
So, how long has this been in the making? You talked about a similar concept in your TEDTalk from 2007, but when did it start concretely?
We consider Leap Day of 2008 our real start date. It was almost a year after the TEDTalk that we got together the money and the team.
We’ve heard that Wordnik.com may have had its beginnings at TED? Can you confirm this rumor?
Yes, yes! It was after the talk at TED that Roger McNamee said, “Let’s have lunch.” I had lunch with him and his wife Ann. We started with the idea that we could use language analysis techniques to help other companies. But as we were discussing it, we realized that it wouldn’t be all that different to start this as a stand-alone being.
Then Roger brought in Steve Anderson of Baseline Ventures. Steve gave a lot of advice on the practical end, which was great, because my career as a dictionary editor did not completely prepare me for my new role as a start-up CEO. I found Grant Barrett and Orion Montoya who I worked with at Oxford University Press. Steve and Roger then found Tony Tam, who became our head of engineering. And that was the beginning of our staff.
Without TED this would not have happened. There’s zero chance that I would have met Roger McNamee, and even less of a chance that I would have had 20 minutes to speak at him. The TED video was also a great recruiting tool because when I needed to explain my idea I could just email the link. You know, for when people ask, “Who’s Erin? What does she want to do?” I could just direct them to the talk.
Everyone at TED has been so helpful. Tom Rielly has given me so much support. And I had a conversation with June (Cohen) this morning where she offered to add the transcripts for the TEDTalks to our text examples. So when you look up a word like “synecdochically,” which I mention in my talk and probably isn’t found in many other places, there will be a reference. And, because the transcripts link to the actual video, people can hear the words for which we didn’t have a link to the pronunciation.
That’s another thing about this system -- people who are contributing don’t even know they are. If you tweet a word, we’ll link to your tweet on Wordnik, so you don’t even have to go out of your way.
We love that you included Twitter and Flickr elements. How did you decide on pulling these in? It doesn’t seem to be an immediately intuitive decision, but is so helpful to understanding a word’s use and meaning.
It’s funny because it’s completely intuitive to dictionary editors. How can we show how a word is really used? The other day I tried to find out if “pants” was being used as a suffix and I found a tweet for “awesomepants.” Twitter is like overhearing people’s conversations, which is exactly what dictionary editors have been wishing we could do for years.
Flickr -- well, if you’ve looked at dictionary illustrations you know that they tend to be uninteresting, and so small. With Flickr, you get a lot of abstractions too. What dictionary would have pictures of “honor”? When you look “honor” up on Wordnik, you get pictures of women named Honor, which tells you that it’s also used as a proper noun. You also get images of flags and different symbols of the military. Now you can see what feelings words evoke.
READ MORE: Erin McKean on sourcing text examples, swine flu tags and coming to your own conclusions on words
30 April 2009
Q&A with Laurie Garrett: "This is a huge wake-up call"
TED took 20 minutes with Laurie Garrett this afternoon to follow up on her TEDTalk from 2007, posted today, about pandemic flu. Garrett is the author of The Coming Plague, and a fellow on the Council for Foreign Relations who studied global health and emerging diseases. (As you can imagine, she is very busy this week.) We asked Garrett: What has changed since the last pandemic panic, 2007's avian flu? What does she worry about now? And really, should we not wash our hands?
Did the avian flu scare of two years ago prompt real action from the government?
Yeah, I think actually there's been a serious maturation in not only US response but all over the world and within the WHO. We're in a different era in terms of how the public is getting information. The CDC even has a Twitter account -- hundreds of thousands of people are twittering the CDC.
So the situation of 2007 has changed?
Yes, we're way beyond that now. All the thought processes that went on, all the practices and drills -- and criticisms from people like myself -- has paid off.
The WHO seems much more open now -- with daily briefings on the web, news releases, the announcement today that we're not longer calling it "swine flu" ...
That was because the pork industry went bananas. They've seen countries ban US and Mexican pork products. It's affecting the US meat industry in ways that couldn't be predicted. It's what we saw in the chicken industry with H5N1 [avian flu].
But it's really important to understand -- in the big picture, stepping away from the immediate situation -- it's not coincidental that we're looking at a virus that seems to have elements genetically from at least three species of host, human, bird and pig, and even the pig pieces seem to come from a minimum of six different input points. This is the most deeply mosaiced virus that we've seen circulating in humans. And it has erupted from the pork industry. So we have these giant industrial-scaled pork plants where the pigs are literally snout to snout -- you have an infection start at one end, and it just zips through the whole darn place.
One of our Facebook commenters noted this -- that "packing 500,000 animals in a space of the size of a football field is a recipe for disaster."
Pigs are passing their viruses to humans, but more significantly, humans are passing their viruses to pigs. H1N1 appears to have been a human virus that passed through pigs, through birds, back through pigs, it took a few more turns, and then back to humans.
We have these new ecologies that are complete artificial and completely bizarre. Imagine a row of neatly stacked dominoes all stacked in the same way. Think of the pork industry as the dominoes. You're creating these perfect environments for disease. We know it's better to have a heterogeneous population, and this is a huge wake-up call.
Do you feel differently now than you did then about any of the points you made -- about masks or handwashing, for instance?
I think the primary purpose of a mask is to scare the heck out of the people you're talking to, and then they stay 5 feet away. They don't keep viruses away, they keep people away.
For those who are health professionals and first responders, who have to get up close and personal with people, I remain convinced that only an N95 mask, a fitted N95 mask, offers the proper protection.
For the average person, I really think the primary person of the mask is to scare other people. Although, if you are sick and you cough, most of the droplets do end up inside the mask, so you are protecting other people.
And handwashing?
Well, I think handwashing is going to help, and you should wash your hands.
But the interesting thing is, Why do we have flu so late in the year? Usually the flu season has been over for quite some time, so this is a very unusual situation. And one of the things that's interesting about why flu is seasonal, and is the sort of bad-news endpoint of the paragraph I am now uttering: When flu is coughed or you sneeze it, the virus is suspended in a liquid environment. Ideally an environment with lots of polysaccharides and sugars, an environment like mucus. Suspended in mucus, the virus can go from your hand to a doorknob, from a doorknob to another person's hand; it can go onto the surface of a telephone ... all those things are contagious to others. Mucus also protects the virus from ultraviolet rays. One reason flu is seasonal -- as the temperature rises, these things tend to dry out. So in the summer, it's very, very unusual to see flu virus circulating. The bad new is, if this virus has indeed taken hold, it will move to the Southern hemisphere for their winter, and it will come back to us, possibly in a different mutation, this fall. As our temperatures drop, we may see a return. This is the ominous issue.
30 April 2009
What can we learn from the 1918 flu pandemic? Laurie Garrett on TED.com
In 2007, as the world worried about a possible avian flu epidemic, Laurie Garrett, author of The Coming Plague, gave this powerful talk to a small TED University audience. Her insights from past pandemics are suddenly more relevant than ever. (Recorded at TED U 2007, February 2007, in Monterey, California. Duration: 21:05.)
Watch Laurie Garrett's talk from TED U 2007 on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 400+ TEDTalks.
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08 April 2009
Bumptop launches!
Via Mashable and ReadWriteWeb: Anand Agarwala's Bumptop, a viral demo from TED2007, has gone live (for Windows). From Mashable's report:
Two years ago, a bright engineer, Anand Agarawala, gave a presentation at the TED conference about a new technology he and a team were working on that showed how they believed the desktop should work. Just like how people use a real desk, they believed that the user should be able to interact with desktop items in 3D, pin up photographs, pile related items into stacks, and more.
Today, that dream has become a reality with the launch of BumpTop for Windows (Mac version coming soon), a gorgeous desktop application that transforms the desktop from a cold, vertical interface into a dynamic 3-dimensional room ...
Right now, the site Bumptop.com seems to be swamped. So until you can check it out in person, here's Anand Agarwala's demo of Bumptop at TED:
24 March 2009
James Nachtwey speaks in Rio to mark World TB Day
Photographer James Nachtwey, whose TED Prize wish was to raise awareness of TB and the mutant strain XDRTB, will speak in Rio de Janeiro today to mark World TB Day. The Stop TB Partnership is twittering live from the meeting, and it's being webcast live, with yesterday's sessions available for viewing as well.
See James Nachtwey's powerful photographs of the XDRTB epidemic:
02 September 2008
The immense promise of DNA folding: Paul Rothemund on TED.com
At TED2007, Paul Rothemund gave TED a short summary of DNA folding (calling it a process akin to magic). Now, he lays out in clear, adundant detail the immense promise of this field -- to create tiny machines that assemble themselves from a set of instructions. (Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 16:24.)
Watch Paul Rothemund's 2008 talk on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 285 TEDTalks -- including many more talks from MacArthur "genius" grant winners.
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23 October 2007
The center of our minds: Vilayanur Ramachandran on TED.com
Brain researcher Vilayanur Ramachandran talks about how brain damage can reveal the connection between the internal structures of the brain and the corresponding functions of the mind. He discusses three specific syndromes: phantom limb pain, synesthesia (when people hear color or smell sounds), and the Capgras delusion, when brain-damaged people believe their closest friends and family have been replaced with imposters. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 23:46.)
Watch Vilayanur Ramachandran's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
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18 October 2007
Our cell phones, ourselves: Jan Chipchase on TED.com
Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase investigates the ways we interact with technology -- a quest that has led him from the villages of Uganda to the insides of our pockets. Along the way, he's made some unexpected discoveries: about the ways illiterate people use their mobile phones, the new roles the mobile can play in global commerce, and the deep emotional bonds we share with our phones. And he's got a surefire trick to keep you from misplacing your keys. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 16:15.)
Watch Jan Chipchase's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
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16 October 2007
The illustrated woman: Maira Kalman on TED.com
Author and illustrator Maira Kalman talks about her life and work -- from her New Yorker covers to her children's books to her newest book for grownups, The Principles of Uncertainty. And yes, in person, she is as wonderful, as wise, and as deliciously off-kilter as her work. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 17:42.)
Watch Maira Kalman's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
Read more about Maira Kalman on TED.com.
11 October 2007
Robots that are "self-aware": Hod Lipson on TED.com
Engineer Hod Lipson demonstrates and talks about a few of his cool little robots, which have the ability to learn, understand themselves and even self-replicate. At the root of this uncanny demo is a deep inquiry into the nature of how living beings learn and evolve, and how we might harness these processes to make things that learn and evolve. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 06:29.)
Watch Hod Lipson's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
Read more about Hod Lipson on TED.com.
09 October 2007
Life at 30,000 feet: Richard Branson on TED.com
When Richard Branson was at school, his headmaster predicted he would wind up either a millionaire or in jail. Since then, he's done both. He talks to TED's Chris Anderson about the ups and the downs of his career, from his multibillionaire success to his multiple near-death experiences, from Virgin's line of spacecraft to the failure of the Virgin condom. He also reveals some of his (very surprising) motivations. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 30:44.)
Watch Richard Branson's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
Read more about Richard Branson on TED.com.
08 October 2007
Speaker updates: Craig Venter, Jeff Han
Updates from TED speakers:
After a whirlwind of media speculation over the weekend following a story by The Guardian, biologist Craig Venter (watch his TED2005 speech) will announce today at the annual meeting of his institute in San Diego that his team has built a synthetic chromosome, using lab chemicals. "A giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes", writes the newspaper.
Mr Venter's autobiography, "A Life Decoded: My Genome, My Life" is scheduled to be published in two weeks.
At TED2006 computer scientist Jeff Han demonstrated his prototype of a revolutionary multitouch screen (watch video). At TED2007 he brought along a larger, wall-size version that TEDsters could try out. The interactive media wall, built by Han's company Perceptive Pixel, will be sold by Nieman Marcus in the US. Price tag: $100,000 USD.
05 October 2007
"Rock star" Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala named to World Bank
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (watch her TEDTalks from TED2007 and TEDGlobal07), the crusading economist and former Finance Minister of Nigeria, has been appointed a Managing Director of the World Bank.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala will oversee the World Bank’s work in Africa, South Asia, and Europe and Central Asia. "Her commitment to the developing world is unparalleled," said Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank. She's been working with the Stolen Assets Recovery (StAR) initiative to help poor countries reclaim assets lost to corruption, and with Bono's DATA organization on historic debt-relief programs. Bono said of her last week, "She's the kind of leader we all want to work for." (And as Portfolio.com commented, she's as much a rock star as that Irish gentleman.)
13 September 2007
Scenes from "The War Tapes": Deborah Scranton on TED.com
The director of the award-winning documentary The War Tapes, Deborah Scranton makes films that help people tell their own stories. She talks about making The War Tapes, her 2006 doc that put videocameras in the hands of Charlie Company, a unit of the National Guard stationed in Iraq, for one year. Their raw footage and diaries tell a powerful, unsettling story. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 17:49.)
Watch Deborah Scranton's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
Read more about Deborah Scranton on TED.com.
30 August 2007
Redefining the dictionary: Erin McKean on TED.com
Is the beloved paper dictionary doomed to extinction? When does a made-up word become real? And could you use "synecdochical" in a sentence, please? In this infectiously exuberant talk, leading lexicographer Erin McKean looks at the many ways in which today's print dictionary is poised for transformation in this internet era. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 15:41.)
Watch Erin McKean's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
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23 August 2007
Making films to make change: Jeff Skoll on TED.com
Jeff Skoll made his fortune as the first president of eBay. Now he's spending it at the movies. His company, Participant Productions, makes entertaining, issues-driven films that inspire real change -- Murderball, Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth ... Here, he talks about the people who've inspired him to do good, and about some upcoming films that will open your eyes. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 15:45.)
Watch Jeff Skoll's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
Read more about Jeff Skoll on TED.com.
16 August 2007
Lakshmi Pratury: India turns 60, time to renew its vows
At TED2007, Lakshmi Pratury beautifully spoke about the lost art of letter-writing and its power. Founder of Tamarind Grove, which creates business and cultural links between the US and India, and a longtime TEDster, Lakshmi just posted on her blog her thoughts on the 60th anniversary of India's independence (that was yesterday, August 15):
"In most Indian states, when someone turns 60, they renew their wedding vows. (...) If India is turning 60, who would it renew its vows with and what would each party say?"
She starts by quoting India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, the eve of the independence: "at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.” Then she proceeds to analyze the wows in the context of "the cause of humanity", discussing the destinies of the traditional elite (kings and princes), the middle class, the business conglomerate and tech elite (winners), and the poor, about which she says: "India has not delivered what it promised to them, but they delivered the spirit of India better than any other strata of society".
"India is in a good place today. The world is watching us and the only hindrance to India becoming a super power is India itself. (...) It is only our humility of our capabilities and a dedication to preserving our culture that can catapult India into true leadership (...) while embracing the entrepreneurial and risk taking values of the west. It is my dream that the largest democracy, India and the richest democracy, U.S can work together to create a new democracy of ideas that can change the world we live in for a better tomorrow and this is my toast to the bride and the groom as they renew their vows on the 60th birthday".
16 August 2007
Emily Oster: Cable television is good for women in India
University of Chicago economist Emily Oster went on stage at TED2007 to say that most of what we know about AIDS in Africa is wrong -- and proceeded to show data and graphs to make her case (watch the video of her speech -- or read the summary). Now she's applied her atypical lens to the effect of the introduction of cable television on gender attitudes in rural India, coming up again with surprising results.
In a recent draft paper (full text in PDF) that she wrote with Robert Jensen of Brown University after a three-year study, she argues that "the introduction of cable television is associated with improvements in women's status" and finds "significant increases in reported autonomy, decreases in the reported acceptability of beating and decreases in reported son preferences", this last point being about sex-selective abortions (rural families prefer boys). They also found "increases in female school enrollment and decreases in fertility (primarily via increased birth spacing)."
The effects are large, the two researchers argue, "equivalent in some cases to about five years of education" within the surveyed population.
These changes are "accomplished despite there being little or no direct targeted appeals" such as public-service announcements. Which brings Oster and Jensen to speculate that "it may be that cable television, with programming that features lifestyle both in urban areas and in other countries, is an effective form of persuasion, because people emulate what they perceive to be desirable behavior and attitudes".
26 July 2007
How I got my new hip: Allison Hunt on TED.com
TEDster Allison Hunt's five-minute talk finds humor and marketing strategy in the most unlikely of places -- her own hip-replacement surgery. As the world scrutinizes broken health-care systems, this particularly timely clip shows how getting to the front of a two-year waiting list can have an altruistic effect. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 5:00.)
Watch Allison Hunt's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
Read more about Allison Hunt on TED.com.
24 July 2007
High drama inside a cell, on TED.com
David Bolinsky and his team at XVIVO illustrate scientific and medical concepts with high-drama animation. These animators are true auteurs, carefully scripting and editing the story of cellular processes to show everyone -- expert and amateur alike -- the truth and the beauty of our bodies. You've never seen the life of a cell quite like this. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 9:57.)
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17 July 2007
Will Wright previews his new game, Spore, on TED.com
A technical virtuoso with boundless imagination, Will Wright has created a style of computer gaming unlike any that came before, emphasizing learning more than losing, invention more than sport. With his hit game SimCity, he spurred players to make predictions, take risks, and sometimes fail miserably, as they built their own virtual urban worlds. With his follow-up hit, The Sims, he encouraged the same creativity toward building a household, all the while preserving the addictive fun of ordinary video games. His next game, Spore, which he previews here, evolves an entire universe from a single-celled creature. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 16:49.)
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13 July 2007
E.O. Wilson on PBS: Why should we care if the woodpecker goes?
The last "Bill Moyers Journal", the weekly report on PBS, featured a long interview (video - transcript) by Moyers with biologist and TED Prize 2007 winner EO Wilson. The focus was very much on Wilson's career -- "No one in our time has added more to our understanding of Earth's ecology than Ed Wilson" is how Moyers described him -- but Moyers took the opportunity to also ask questions about the Encyclopedia of Life. The EOL is Wilson's TED Prize wish (video - summary - text): It's a vast project aimed at documenting all 1.8 million named species of animals, plants, and other forms of life on Earth, and those yet to be discovered ("We're maybe today about 1/10 through the discovery of species", says Wilson). Efforts towards an EOL have been underway since January 2006, but Wilson's TED2007 speech has significantly accelerated the process, with the McArthur Foundation leading a US$ 50 million funding commitment, leading scientific institutions including Harvard University and the Smithsonian teaming up, and agency Avenue A/Razorfish creating a first design concept for the Encyclopedia and a video to explain the ambitious vision behind the initiative, using photography by Frans Lanting (watch his TED 2005 speech) and others.
Moyers is a great interviewer. At a certain point, he asks Wilson: why should we care if the woodpecker goes? I mean, we've lost---how many species have we lost?
Wilson: How many species going extinct or becoming very rare do you think it takes before you see something happening? We now know from experiments and theory that the more species you take out of an ecosystem like a pond, a patch of forest, a little bit of marine shallow environments, the more you take out the less stable it becomes. If you have a tsunami or a severe drought or a fire, it is less likely that that ecosystem, that body of species in that particular environment, is going to come back all the way. So it becomes less stable with fewer species. And then we also know it becomes less productive. In other words, it's not able to produce as many kilograms of new matter from photosynthesis and passage through the ecosystem. It's less productive. It sure is less interesting, though, isn't it? And more than that: we lose the services of these species.
Moyers: The services of these species.
Wilson: Yes, services of these species to us. Like pollination and water purification.
Moyers: That we get free from nature.
Wilson: Yeah. Here's an easy way to remember it.
12 July 2007
Everything we know about AIDS in Africa is wrong: Emily Oster on TED.com
Emily Oster, a University of Chicago economist, looks at the stats on AIDS in Africa -- and comes up with a stunning conclusion: Everything we know about AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is wrong. We look for root causes such as poverty and poor health care -- but we also need to factor in, say, the price of coffee, and the routes of long-haul truckers. In short, she says, there is a lot we don't know; and our assumptions about what we do know may keep us from finding the best way to stop the disease. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 15:45.)
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Read more about Emily Oster on TED.com.
10 July 2007
Jonathan Harris tells the Web's secret stories, on TED.com
Jonathan Harris wants to make sense of the infinite world on the Web -- so he builds dazzling graphic interfaces that help us visualize the data floating around out there. Here he presents "We Feel Fine," a project that scours blogs to collect the planet's emoti(c)ons, and the "Yahoo! Time Capsule," which preserves images, quotes and thoughts snapped up in 2006. And he premieres "Universe," which presents current events as constellations of words -- a tag cloud of our collective consciousness. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 19:37.) Read more about Jonathan Harris on TED.com.
Watch this talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
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28 June 2007
To the depths of the Earth ... and beyond! Watch Bill Stone on TED.com
Bill Stone, the maverick cave explorer and diver -- who has invented robots and rebreathing equipment to let him plumb Earth’s deepest abysses -- talks about his efforts to build a robot to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa. The plan is to send the droid to bore through miles of ice and swim through a liquid underworld that may harbor alien life. And if that’s not enough, he’s also planning to mine ice, on Earth's own moon, by 2015. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 17:55) Read more about Bill Stone on TED.com.
Watch this talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
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26 June 2007
Hans Rosling's jaw-dropping demo, on TED.com
In a follow-up to his now-legendary TED2006 presentation, Hans Rosling demonstrates how developing countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. He shows us the next generation of his Trendalyzer software -- which analyzes and displays data in amazingly accessible ways, allowing people to see patterns previously hidden behind mountains of stats. (Just days after this talk, he announced a deal with Google to acquire the software.) He also demos Dollar Street, a program that lets you peer in the windows of typical families worldwide living at different income levels. Be sure to watch straight through to the (literally) jaw-dropping finale. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 19:09) Read more about Hans Rosling on TED.com.
Watch this talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
21 June 2007
A tour of MS Virtual Earth, on TED.com
Stephen Lawler, from Microsoft, takes us on a tour through the company's new Virtual Earth project, which is, basically, an attempt to turn the entire planet into an interface to the web. Collecting and synthesizing massive amounts of data -- bird's-eye views, street-level photos, 3D wireframes -- the Virtual Earth team are building a world of possibilities. Bonus: This talk may explain the mysterious vans with cameras on top that you might have seen cruising up and down your street. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 06:55) Read Stephen Lawler's profile on TED.com
Watch this talk on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
14 June 2007
A taste of TED, or two
Watch here a new "taste of TED" video documentary shot at this year's conference, in March. In 7 minutes it gives a great sense of the atmosphere at TED and of the content of the conference. It is also available elsewhere on this site, and you can download it here (158 Mb).
Another documentary about TED, "The future we will create: Inside the world of TED", which was filmed at TED2006, is been shown this coming Saturday night at the Maui Film Festival. Producers Daphne Zuniga and Steven Latham got full access to the conference, and used it wisely to take the viewers behind the scenes -- on top of showing speakers ranging from Al Gore to Peter Gabriel. The full-feature documentary (74 minutes) had a premiere screening in New York a few weeks ago and later in Los Angeles. It has been released on Netflix (US only) last week.
04 April 2007
2007 TED Prize winner E.O. Wilson on TEDTalks
As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere. We know so little about nature, he says, that we're still discovering tiny organisms indispensable to life; and yet we're steadily, methodically, vigorously destroying nature. Wilson identifies five grave threats to biodiversity (a term he coined), and makes his TED wish: that we will work together on the Encyclopedia of Life, a web-based compendium of data from scientists and amateurs on every aspect of the biosphere. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 24:21)
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04 April 2007
2007 TED Prize winner James Nachtwey
Accepting his 2007 TED Prize, James Nachtwey talks about his decades as a photojournalist. A slideshow of his photos, beginning in 1981 in Northern Ireland, reveals two parallel themes in his work. First, as he says: "The frontlines of contemporary wars are right where people live." Street violence, famine, disease: he has photographed all these modern WMDs. Second, when a photo catches the world's attention, it can truly drive action and change. In his TED wish, he asks for help gaining access to a story that needs to be told, and developing a new, digital way to show these photos to the world. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 23:41)
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10 March 2007
TED2007: Day four wrap-up
Quotes of the day:
Explorer Bill Stone: "The traditional approach to space exploration has been to carry all the fuel you need, and to carry everybody back in case of emergency. But to prime the pump that will take us beyond, boldness is required: the first expeditionary team must travel to the Moon without the fuel to come back, and produce it there. It can be done in 7 years, and I intend to lead that expedition. There was a time when people did bold things to open new frontiers. We have collectively forgotten that. Now we are at a time when boldness is required again."
Multientrepreneur Richard Branson: "I guess I was a maverick." (Talking about his school years)
"New philanthropy expert Katherine Fulton: "There is a new moral hunger that is growing."
TED2007's over. TED2008 will take place February 28 - March 1 in Monterey.
10 March 2007
TED2007 Day Three: things that knocked my hat in the creek
Wow! Day Three at TED2007 ROCKED! A magical day which got crank-started by a truly electric presentation on the perils of Local Warming.
This was a day which just can't wait for the TEDTalks to come out. Daniel Goleman made a wonderful connection between emotional intelligence and the empathy which will be required -- by all of us -- to make more informed, broader-scope consumption and action decisions in the future. Later in the day Eames Demetrios, grandson of Charles Eames (and a true design thinker in his own right) made the same point in a different way -- humanity has got the information now; we just need to start making better choices.
Today (actually, yesterday, since once again I find myself blogging at 4 in the morning -- funny that...) was one of those classic TED days where almost everything was mind-blowing,where just about everything knocked my hat in the creek. Highlights for me were JJ Abrams and his Mystery Box; Jeff Skoll and his enlightened humanity; Deborah Scranton and her movie The War Tapes, which every global citizen must see and experience; Will Wright and his latest "game" which I couldn't help but think was the fortuitous answer to the TEDPrize wish of 2007 TEDPrize winner E.O. Wilson; Jaime Lerner as a vibrant example of the power of pure enthusiasm; Eames Demetrios for giving us the gift of previously unseen movies which exposed the vernacular power of iterative prototyping, as well as a parable of a banana leaf which pretty much sums up TED 2006+2007 in a nutshell (you MUST watch this TEDTalk when it comes out!); and of course Tracy Chapman and Isabel Allende for their artistry and authenticity.
It was a good day.
Above, all, I want to express my personal gratitude for Thomas Dolby and the musicians of the Jazz Mafia for the musical punch they give to all of TED:
09 March 2007
TED2007: Sketchblogging the conference
Lorna Herf is an illustrator and designer from Los Angeles attending TED and she's been blogging on lornamatic in a pretty original and compelling way - she's sketchblogging the conference. Check out her blog. Here are her "notes" from four speakers: Carolyn Porco (session 1), John Doerr (session 3), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (session 3) and Michael Pollan (session 5):
06 March 2007
TED2007: pre-conference impressions
Minus one (day). TED2007 starts tomorrow Wednesday. The whole team is in Monterey getting things ready. Here a few impressions of today, starting with the preparation of the main stage:
Just outside, tech and decoration materials are being delivered:
Speakers' pictures are ready to be hung on the walls:
The simulcast room is being assembled:
In a separate room, the "gift bags" for the 1200 attendees are filled and stockpiled:
So we're almost ready to go:
There has been some news coverage of TED lately. One month ago CBS put online a 10-minutes video report on TED, who attends and what's discussed. This week's BusinessWeek has a story headlined "Forget Davos. I'm booked up for TED", while yesterday's New York Times describes "Where artists and investors plot to save the world". While both articles say great things about TED and compare it favorably to the Davos World Economic Forum however, it's worth pointing out that they almost contradict each other. BusinessWeek quotes a former attendee suggesting that TED has become mainly about connections with celebrities; the NY Times writes that TED is now mainly a do-good gathering discussing "photographs of genocide victims, environmentally sustainable AIDS clinics and water-purification systems".
Between glam celebrities and genocide victims, the truth is that the actual content -- the speakers and the ideas -- at TED this year promises to be more interesting than ever.
I will try to liveblog it starting tomorrow, with highlights on the TEDblog and full content on LunchOverIP. We are also planning to have daily summary podcasts. Other bloggers will be writing/podcasting from TED: check out in particular Ethan Zuckerman and Tom Guarriello. If you're blogging from the conference, leave a comment with your URL here: I will be composing a list of TED bloggers and publish it.
05 March 2007
What's your Starck factor?
One of the greatest things about TED is the opportunity to get acquainted with people who are already part of your life, even if you don't know them personally. Be it hearing them in a speech, meeting them in the audience, or catching them in a TEDTalks video, TED gives us all a chance to meet the designers, entertainers, technologists, academics, film makers, poets, architects, writers, scientists, journalists, and politicians who help shape the world we live in.
So imagine my excitement when I learned that Philippe Starck would be on the TED2007 speaker lineup. A maverick's maverick, Starck continues to exert a massive influence on our aesthetic and social landscape. As the TED2007 program states:
He is the most famous and prolific designer alive. The streamlined and organic look of his architecture, interior design and product design has influenced designers and consumers alike, and as a result he has changed the way we live.
Which made me ask, "What's my Starck factor? How much Starck is there in my day to day life?" The answer is: quite a lot, and more than I thought. Here's a quick survey -- your results may vary:
First, the Starck Gnomes. As it happens, I have a lot of meetings at work in a room staffed by these patient and sturdy little guys. I think they help bring good karma to the room, which makes some of the harder meetings a little easier:
I also occasionally hold an outdoor meeting where we end up sitting on this Starck sofa. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to tell you that my bottom doesn't find it to be a plush sit. That's okay, though, because the comfort limitations curtail the length of those sessions, and academic studies have shown that 10-20 minute meetings are more productive than their lengthier cousins:
Above all, I like sitting in this Eros chair. It feels great to sit in and be seen in. And it helps you empathize with the olive in a martini. Fun!:
In a drawer at home I keep this incredible watch by Starck for Fossil. I love the way it looks on the wrist, like a timepiece beamed back from the future. It's my "special occasions" watch. The green readout is cool, too:
Here's one I don't have. But if I was living in a flat in Paris, I'd be riding this Aprilia Moto 6.5 whenever a pedal bike wouldn't do. Where other motorcycles get tripped up by their own macho fixations, saying "I'm going to take you for a ride," this one has a kindlier aspect. It says "Let's go for a ride -- together." And I love the orange splash. Perfect:
Another one on my "to buy" list. This clock from Oregon Scientific is extremely clever in that it beams the time up on to the ceiling, so that you can read it while lying in bed. Come to think of it, that easy glance up could be useful in many situations, such as making sure that that work meeting goes no longer than 20 minutes:
That's just a brief personal inventory based on the life works of just one TED speaker. It's worth your while to browse through Starck's immense portfolio. Imagine the breadth and depth of impact across all of the TEDsters through time. What's your TED Factor?
03 March 2007
What Are Icons, Mavericks and Geniuses?
The theme for the TED 2008 conference was recently announced -- it is "The Big Questions." A worthy theme for TED, indeed, but not one I am yet prepared to ponder. Rather, as TED 2007 is literally around the corner, I find myself much more engaged in contemplating next week's theme -- "Icons. Geniuses. Mavericks." An equally worth theme, but what does it mean?
One might attempt to intuit the answer from next week's program. Presumably these amazing speakers are the icons, geniuses and mavericks of which we speak. But who is what? Is Paul Simon a genius or an icon? Is Nathan Myhrvold a maverick or a genius? Is Richard Branson an icon or a maverick? And what in the world is Tom Reilly? Clearly it was going to take more than mere deduction to appreciate the meaning of next week's theme.
Finding insufficient inspiration from TED's own website, I chose to take the very advice I give my kids when they ask me a question for which I have no answer -- "I don't know, look it up on Wikipedia." So off to Wikipedia I went, while contemplating whether TEDster Jimmy Wales would be described as an icon, maverick or genius? Thankfully, Jimmy spoke at TEDglobal2005 for which no categorization was required; instead, Jimmy needed only to share "Ideas Big Enough to Change the World." Given his druthers, Jimmy may have opted for categorization over the lofty requirement of world-changing ideas. Nonetheless, a theme's a theme and Jimmy was not an "icon, genius or maverick," but rather a speaker of "ideas big enough to change the world." I remained hopeful that Jimmy's big idea -- Wikipedia -- would be able to help me solve my conundrum.
Unfortunately, delving into the pages of Wikipedia did not give me instant clarity as to the essence of these terms. But, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and therefore I will share with you what Wikipedia did have to say about Icons, Geniuses and Mavericks.
Not a bad lineup if TED could pull it off -- Jesus, Einstein and James Garner. I've often thought what a great conference TED could create if there was time travel. Alas, next week's icons, geniuses and mavericks are going to have to come from the living to participate. Luckily, judging by the schedule, there were plenty to chose among. Since I can get no more clarity from Wikipedia on this year's TED theme, I guess I'll have to report back after the conference with my thoughts on what makes an icon, genius or maverick. Until then, I think I'll go watch some reruns of Maverick on the American Life Network.
02 March 2007
BusinessWeek on being "booked up for TED"
Minus five (days) on the countdown to TED2007. The whole team is at work applying the final touches and extinguishing the inevitable last-minute fires and preparing to head to Monterey (which also means that from this point on, no one on the team can guarantee to respond to individual email or phone requests... Apologies).
In the meantime, here is some reading material: a story in this week's BusinessWeek: "Forget Davos. I'm booked up for TED":
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