TED Blog » TED2003

Pendulum paintings of Tom Shannon

tedchris — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:45:52 +0000

I’m a huge fan of sculptor & painter Tom Shannon, a gentle genius who turns science into art and art into science. We just posted today his 2003 TED talk showing his gorgeous science-inspired sculptures and his vision for the Air Genie video airship. In the last few months he has returned to a form of painting he invented more than 20 years ago. He created a mechanized paint dispenser that is suspended on a giant pendulum over a canvas on the floor. Tom sets the pendulum in motion, typically on an oval pathway, and then uses a remote control device to select with careful precision which paints are streamed onto the canvas and in what quantity.

At his Manhattan studio the other evening, I watched him in action. The results are spectacular. He’s given me permission to share some of these images, none of which are up on his site yet. (Apart from the first two, these are details of larger paintings.) They are to be the subject of an exhibition in New York later this year. (Watch this space).

View the images in the Flickr set “New work from Tom Shannon” >>

or watch the slideshow:

How biotech will drive our evolution: Gregory Stock on TED.com

tedstaff — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:00:00 +0000

In this prophetic 2003 talk — just days before Dolly the sheep was stuffed — biotech ethicist Gregory Stock looked forward to new, more meaningful (and controversial) technologies, like customizable babies, whose adoption might drive human evolution. (Recorded at TED2003, February 2003, in Monterey, California. Duration: 17:52.)

Watch Gregory Stock’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 400+ TEDTalks — including more talks about biotech.

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The 3 ways good design makes us happy: Don Norman on TED.com

tedstaff — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:00:00 +0000

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.

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UNESCO's endangered language report: We've lost Manx

Emily McManus — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:38:30 +0000

The newest edition of UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger totes up 6,000 world languages — and counts 2,500 as endangered and 200 as completely lost. The interactive atlas, released today, ranks the 2,500 endangered languages by five levels of vitality: unsafe, definitely endangered, severely endangered, critically endangered and extinct. This free, browsable resource complements a print version to be released next month. From UNESCO’s announcement:

For example, the Atlas states that 199 languages have fewer than ten speakers and 178 others have 10 to 50. Among the languages that have recently become extinct, it mentions Manx (Isle of Man), which died out in 1974 when Ned Maddrell fell forever silent, Aasax (Tanzania), which disappeared in 1976, Ubykh (Turkey) in 1992 with the demise of Tevfik Esenc, and Eyak (Alaska, United States of America), in 2008 with the death of Marie Smith Jones.

Browse UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger >>

For more on endangered languages, watch Wade Davis’ 2003 TEDTalk on cultures at the far edge of the world:

UPDATE: Or check out this less-than-scholarly dictionary of endangered slang >>