14 people who’ve time-lapsed their lives, filming one second a dayAs he approached his 30th birthday, artist Cesar Kuriyama noticed that time seemed to be evaporating. And thus, he began work on a project called 1 Second Everyday. “Basically, I’m recording one second of every day of my life for the rest of my life—chronologically compiling these one-second, tiny slices of my life into one […]
The year of the introvert: A Q&A with Susan Cain on the release of her paperbackAt TED2012, Susan Cain asked us to stop the madness. That is: the group work madness. At offices and schools around the globe, the desire for collaboration has led to an onslaught of open floor plans and group projects where individuals aren’t given much space to think on their own. And this is a big […]
9 talks about the making of movie magic“Movies have proved to be the ultimate medium for magic,” says Don Levy in today’s talk. A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and former senior vice president of marketing and communications at Sony Pictures, Levy has always been fascinated by the sleights of hand that filmmakers use to create illusions. […]
Comments we loved this year: The words of supportTED Talks often get 100 or more comments — usually a mixed bag of kudos, critiques and questions. Looking back on the year, we’d like to share a few comments that wowed us. These intelligent, observant contributions took the talks beyond their 18 minutes and into an ongoing conversation. Every speaker appreciates a “Great job!” […]
The Best TED Images of 20122012 has been big for TED — it’s the year we reached a billion video views and upped the TED Prize to one million dollars. And since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a glimpse of the year in photos, taken at TED events as far-flung as Long Beach, Edinburgh, Doha and New York. […]
Six great moments in time-lapse photographyYears ago, Steven Addis’s wife photographed him holding their 1-year-old daughter on the corner of 57 Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City. On her second birthday, the family happened to be back in the city, so headed to the same corner for daddy-daughter photo, round two. The next year, Addis brought his daughter back […]
Let’s talk about sex: Highlights from our chat with John Bohannon and Carl Flink“The birds and the bees” and “the facts of life.” These are the terms adults have come up with when it comes to talking to kids about sex. At TED2012, writer John Bohannon showed dismay at the fact that adults don’t feel comfortable talking to kids about sex, or drugs for that matter, without resorting […]
10 talks about the beauty — and difficulty — of being creativeRadio host Julie Burstein has found the perfect analogy for creativity—raku pottery. A Japanese art form in which molded clay is heated for 15 minutes and then dropped in sawdust which bursts into flames, what makes this pottery so beautiful is its imperfections and cracks. Burstein interviewed hundred of artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers for […]
Susan Cain makes last night’s episode of JeopardyThe answer to this clue from last night’s Jeopardy? Who are ‘introverts,’ of course. The TED staff was excited to see Susan Cain, who gave the blockbuster talk “The power of introverts” at TED2012, name-checked in an episode of the classic game show.
8 fascinating talks about Mars, including a new one from Bill Nye the Science GuyIn today’s thrilling TED-Ed lesson, Bill Nye the Science Guy admits that he has S.O.D., otherwise known as Sundial Obsessive Disorder. But there is a good reason for it — a sundial helped Nye’s father escape from a prison camp in China during World War II, launching a lifelong obsession that Nye eventually picked up […]
The importance of preserving cultural artifacts: A look at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Islamic WingMuseum exhibitions offer a complex conundrum. While museum-goers walk through, looking at art and objects of extreme historical importance, the context of a piece’s creation is often reduced to a small plaque on the wall. This is an issue that Thomas P. Campbell, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, thinks […]
Fellows in the Field: Ayah Bdeir’s blinking, buzzy building blocks.TED Fellows are an extraordinary group of innovators and iconoclasts. Today’s Fellows in the Field features Ayah Bdeir, founder of hardware startup littleBits. Hailed as LEGO for the iPad generation, littleBits are a set of open source, preassembed electronic modules that snap together with magnets to make larger, more complex circuits, allowing anyone to play […]
Reading List: 12 books by recent TED speakersWith summer dwindling to its last few days, it’s time to put away the beach reads and get the mind back in gear with heartier fare. Why not start with some of the amazing books written by recent TED speakers? Here, some picks. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer Retells the tale of a forgetful […]
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 […]
The complexities of the psychopath test: A Q&A with Jon RonsonJon Ronson is the author of The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, an exploration of what defines a psychopath. At TED2012, he told a part of that story on stage — how he met a man named Tony who was held for years in a psychiatric prison because he faked mental illness […]
