Hello. My name is Kate and I write things. Often.
On March 10, 2011, Joi Ito was in the MIT Media Lab, in discussions about whether he should be the next director of the mythical innovation space, when he heard that a major earthquake had hit the Pacific coast of Japan. “My wife and family were in Japan,” he says. “As news was coming in, […]
If you walked up the twisting mahogany staircase of the Vancouver Club on Tuesday, past an ominous portrait of a man in a kilt and an empty ballroom with its curtains dancing in the wind, you’d happen upon a dimly lit room filled with TED2014 attendees. Here, about 100 gathered to hear Neil Gaiman read […]
With 12 mainstage sessions and 5 sessions of All-Stars, there wasn’t much time for exploring Vancouver during TED2014. As a great prequel to the conference, Car2Go offered up vehicles so attendees could enjoy a spin around the city. It also provided a map of some spots to check out, featuring locations selected by five TED Fellows: Kitra Cahana, Alex Macdonald, […]
Simon Sinek begins his talk with the story of former U.S. Army Captain William D. Swenson. In 2009, Swenson was on an operation in Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border, when his column was ambushed. It was bad; many were injured. During this ambush, Swenson called for air support and ran through enemy fire to rescue the wounded. […]
Author Isabel Allende is 71. Her husband is 76, her parents are in their late 90s and her dog, Olympia, is 16. So she’s confronting the issue of aging head-on and thinking hard about how to live passionately through the process. “Society decides when we are old, usually at 65,” says Allende. “But really, we start […]
Art historian Sarah Lewis’s first job was at the Museum of Modern Art. While there, she was entranced by an exhibit of works by the artist Elizabeth Murray. So Lewis was intrigued to hear from the painter that she felt several pieces hanging on the walls fell short. For one piece, Murray confessed that she’d found […]
Advertising for telephone companies is all around us. In the United States, AT&T commands us to “Rethink possible,” Verizon loves to ask “Can you hear me now?,” and T-Mobile calls for our attention with lots of hot pink. In Canada, it’s hard to escape ads for Rogers Wireless, Telus and Bell Wireless. And in the […]
For years now, Target has invited designers like Isaac Mizrahi (watch his TED Talk), Diane von Furstenberg (check out her TED playlist) and, most recently, abstract pattern-master Peter Pilotto to dream up collections. So when it came to creating the Target Design Café at TED2014, we knew it was going to be cool. The space […]
TED invites thinkers from every walk of life to share a compelling idea onstage. And this now includes AIs. During Session 9: Signals, Chris Anderson took the stage along with Peter Diamandis, the founder of the XPRIZE. “We’re here today to join forces and announce the creation of a new XPRIZE,” says Anderson. “Here’s the concept—it will […]
“I study ants in the desert, in the tropical forest and in my kitchen,” says Deborah Gordon. An ecologist, she researches the behavior of ant colonies — which are systems that operate without central control. (While they have a queen, Gordon explains, the queen only lays eggs and doesn’t actually issue orders.) Gordon thinks that, from […]
The Olympic motto is “Citius, Altius, Fortius,” or, in English, “Faster, higher, stronger.” And as sports science reporter David Epstein points out from the TED2014 stage, “Athletes have fulfilled that motto — and they’ve done so rapidly.” Epstein investigates why it is that, year upon year, runners, swimmers, gymnasts, basketball players and so many others […]
Wendy Chung of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative says that she is constantly asked the same question by parents: “Why does my child have autism?” It’s a question that plagues them whether their child has a severe form of autism, to the point of being non-verbal, or a mild one. “Autism isn’t a single condition. It’s […]
The second and third days of TED2014 have been tremendous—a mind-bending exercise in crackling new ideas and rethinking old ones. Here, a visual spin through the conference so far.
Hugh Herr, director of the Biomechatronics Group at The MIT Media Lab, strolls onto the TED2014 stage in a pair of long, black shorts. Normally, what he’s wearing wouldn’t be of note—except that he’s chosen his ensemble today to show us something. Below the hem of his shorts, we see that he has two prosthetic legs. […]
What does augmented reality—and football—have to do with empathy? A lot, says Chris Kluwe, former NFL punter and author of the book Beautifully Unique Sparkle Ponies. “Augmented reality is not science fiction,” he says.”Augmented reality will happen in our lifetime. And it will change our lives as much as the Internet.” Kluwe is wearing the first […]
In 1902, bears in the United States were symbols of all the dangers of the frontier. Bears were called “murderers” for their tendency to attack livestock, and they were being systematically killed by the federal government. That was, until President Theodore Roosevelt traveled to Mississippi on a hunting trip. Roosevelt had finished for the day, […]