The design firm Ideo has built a cool little question-asking widget to celebrate the theme of TED2008/TED@Aspen: The Big Questions. Download it to your desktop, and it will ask you a new question every day (and tell you the day and date): + Where will you walk today? + What are you looking forward to […]
It’s time for TED 2008. Most of the TED team — helped by a vast contingent of electricians, decorators, and other skilled craftspeople — is in Monterey, California, preparing the conference, which will start on Wednesday. Our colleagues are in Aspen doing the same (see previous post): in a TED first, the two locations will […]
The TED@Aspen team is busy setting up the gorgeous Doerr-Hosier Center at the Aspen Institute. A few behind-the-scenes pics, from top left: rigging the lighting; Matt, Kelly and Sean go over the schedule; the view from Blogger’s Alley; a new TED friend.
Conde Nast Portfolio, a sponsor of TED2008, has a great package of pre-conference stories about TED2008. Look for interviews with the three 2008 TED Prize winners — Dave Eggers, Neil Turok, and Karen Armstrong — as well as a TED news feed, slide shows and a backgrounder, “Ahead of TED.” Read more here >>
TED’s Musical Director, Thomas Dolby, is blogging about his preparations for the conference — choosing music, working with the amazing house band and special guests … And he plans to blog about TED music regularly from Monterey, throughout the conference. As he writes: So what’s the role of music in all of this? Well, imagine […]
Illustrious jugglers the Raspyni Brothers (who’ll be in residence next week at TED@Aspen) show off their uncanny balance, agility, coordination and willingness to sacrifice (others). Now, if you’ll just stand completely still … (Recorded February 2002 in Monterey, California. Duration: 15:33.) Watch the Raspyni Brothers’ performance on TED.com, where you can download it, rate […]
Two TEDTalks favorites, Jill Sobule and Julia Sweeney, team up for a delightful set that mixes witty songwriting with a little bit of social commentary. (Jill and Julia will be in residence next week at TED@Aspen.) (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 06:20.) Watch Jill Sobule and Julia Sweeney’s performance on TED.com, where […]
In response to the unofficial movement to draft Larry Lessig to run for US Congress, Lessig has set up his own site, Lessig08.com, to help him decide if he should run for a seat in California’s 12th District. A 10-minute video on the site lays out his platform. Lessig08.com will also host Lessig’s yet-to-launch Change […]
Charlie Rose interviews TED’s curator, Chris Anderson, on his show set to air tonight, February 18. The Charlie Rose Show will be broadcast on PBS affiliates throughout the country; check local listings. (In New York, the show plays at 11 pm on Channel 13.) Update: Click here for video of the show >> And here’s […]
Looking back over a long career, architect Moshe Safdie digs deep into four extraordinary projects to talk about the unique choices he made on each building — choosing where to build, pulling information from the client, and balancing the needs and the vision behind each project. Sketches, plans and models show how these grand public […]
From IEEE Spectrum magazine: Dean Kamen’s “Luke arm” — a prosthesis named for the remarkably lifelike prosthetic worn by Luke Skywalker in Star Wars — came to the end of its two-year funding last month. Its fate now rests in the hands of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funded the project. If […]
More presentation news: Garr Reynolds pulls examples from his favorite TEDTalks (Majora Carter, Hans Rosling, Sir Ken Robinson) for his new book, Presentation Zen — to help his readers refine, simplify and focus their own presentations and talks. What makes a great TED speaker? Passion, connection, a story to tell. As Reynolds points out, “If […]
The National Academies’ “Grand Challenges for Engineering” list, released yesterday, runs down the 14 most pressing issues we must face in the 21st century. Creating access to clean water … restoring our cities … engineering new medicines and new ways of providing care … the list is vast and inspiring. Look on the Next Steps […]
A timely item in the week before TED2008: Stephen M. Kosslyn, professor and researcher in mental imagery at Harvard, is out to empower PowerPoint users with lessons from cognitive science. Kosslyn spoke in Boston today at a meeting of the AAAS to share some quirkily titled guidelines (the Goldilocks Rule, the Rudolph Rule) that will […]
Earlier this week, TEDTalks favorite Aubrey de Grey visited Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report to promote his new book, Ending Aging. His controversial 2005 TEDTalk, in which he argued that we could one day extend the human lifespan by hundreds of years, continues to spur debate. Stephen Colbert on de Grey’s nonprofit Methuselah Foundation: “If […]
George Dyson tells the amazing story of Project Orion, a 4,000-ton, nuclear-bomb-propelled spacecraft that could have taken us to Saturn in five years. With a priceless insider’s perspective and a cache of documents, photos and film, Dyson brings this dusty Atomic Age dream to vivid life. (Recorded February 2002 in Monterey, California. Duration: 08:31.) […]