Inanimate objects brought to life: 7 intriguing talksRoads need constant repair. Rain, snow and other moisture seeps into the asphalt and — if it freezes — expands, breaking it apart and creating potholes. In today’s talk, given at TEDxDelft, civil engineer Erik Schlangen reveals a fascinating solution: a road that is able to heal. He gives a demonstration of a new type […]
Google Glass: prototyped using binder clips and clayYou may have heard of Google Glass — a new venture by Google, where a user wears a head-mounted display (think, futuristic sunglasses) that overlays digital information and images onto the physical world. Tom Chi was on the team that developed Google Glass, and spoke about the experience at TEDYouth. In this newly released TED-Ed […]
A wind-powered toy to clear land mines? A fascinating TEDx talkMassoud Hassani is the creator is the Mine Kafon, a tumbleweed-like apparatus that uses wind gusts to roam through land mine-filled areas and detonate hidden mines as it goes. Born from the designs of the wind-powered toys that Hassani and his brother sent tumbling in the desert outside of Kabul as children, the Mine Kafon […]
When flying robots meet mind controlEverything is a remix, Kirby Ferguson told us at TEDGlobal 2012, explaining that the essence of creativity is the welding together of others’ ideas to form something new. We couldn’t help but think of this when we saw an article on TheVerge.com about researchers at Zhejiang Univeristy’s CCNT lab who have combined brainwave technology and airborne robotics […]
In June, TED favorite Marco Tempest told us about the “electric rise and fall of Nikola Tesla,” the late 1800s inventor who held more than 700 patents, including for concepts still used today like alternating current, radio, remote control and robotics. However, after building a wireless telegraphy center in upstate New York that he envisioned […]
Born to innovate: Fellows Friday with Alex Odira OdundoArmed with a good idea, some scrap metal, and plenty of determination, Alex Odira Odundo invented two low-cost machines that make it easy to process fibers from the drought-tolerant sisal plant – promoting stable incomes and improving lives in his subsistence farming community. How did you come to invent the Sisal Decorticator and Sisal Twinner? […]
