TED.com is about to go quiet for the weeks of August 1 and August 8, 2022, while most of the TED staff takes our annual two-week summer holiday. Yes, we all, or almost all, go on holiday at the same time. (No, we don’t all go to the same place.) We’ve been doing it this […]
Behold, your recap of TED-related news: Remembering Billy Graham. For more than 60 years, pastor Billy Graham inspired countless people around the world with his sermons. On Wednesday, February 21, he passed away at his home in North Carolina after struggling with numerous illnesses over the past few years. He was 99 years old. Raised […]
This fall, TED welcomes Colin Helms as its Head of Media. In this leadership team role, Colin will oversee strategy and operations of TED’s core media business, including video production, new format development, distribution, social media, mobile and design. Colin brings more than 20 years of experience in both digital and traditional media content strategy […]
A new way to practice for the SAT. The SAT, a standardized college admissions exam, is a mammoth test, and every minute of practice is invaluable. But SAT practice courses can be expensive — which oftentimes means kids with less money, or from disadvantaged backgrounds, do worse. One year ago, Khan Academy, a free online […]
In the face of global crises like climate change and refugee migration, it seems sometimes that nation-states are hopelessly gridlocked and unable to act. At TEDGlobal 2013, political theorist Benjamin Barber laid out a counter-proposal: Go local. Big cities are demonstrating a remarkable capacity to govern themselves democratically and efficiently in networks, both locally and […]
Drones are the sexy, mysterious tech craze that are often a butt of a joke, a vague solution or an ominous threat. But no matter how flashy, good technology should still solve concrete problems. Amid the hype of getting packages and pizzas delivered in half the time, what if drones could revolutionize transportation networks, connecting […]
An idea worth spreading doesn’t just magically appear out of thin air. Instead, it needs a long incubation period, a sometimes frustrating — and often exciting — trial and error of creation, failure and innovation. On April 18, TED welcomed its first-ever class of the TED Residency program, an in-house community of 27 bright minds […]
The TED community has lots of news this week. Below, just a few highlights. Motherhood without maternity leave. Imagine going back to work only 20 days after giving birth, using up all of your vacation days in lieu of paid or unpaid family leave. In a two-part series for The Atlantic, Jessica Shortall shares how […]
As usual, the TED community has lots of news to share this week. Below, some highlights. A 4.37-lightyear starshot. Humanity has sent people to the moon and rovers to Mars. It might be about time we embark on interstellar travel. Russian philanthropist Yuri Milner, along with board member Stephen Hawking, unveiled a plan on Tuesday […]
Just a few of the intriguing headlines involving members of the TED community this week: The bare necessities of life. In a paper published on March 25, Craig Venter revealed that he and his team have created a minimalist microbe containing only the genes essential for its survival. The ultimate goal is to create new […]
Lots of happenings in the TED community this week. Below, some highlights. Autism awareness at the UN. April 1 is World Autism Awareness Day, and to formally commemorate it, Steve Silberman will give the keynote address at the United Nations Headquarters. Looking ahead to 2030, the UN Department of Public Information and Department of Economic […]
The TED community has been very busy over the past few weeks. Below, some newsy highlights. An app for safer email. On March 17, Andy Yen’s company ProtonMail publicly released their mobile app for making secure email accessible, after almost two years of private beta testing. The app is available for iOS and Android. ProtonMail […]
Are you working on something that deserves wider exposure? Do you draw insights and inspiration from people in other fields? And have you dreamed of giving a TED Talk but don’t know how to get it—or yourself—onto our radar? Well, here’s your chance. With TED moving into new headquarters in New York’s SoHo, there will be room to […]
The stars of your favorite TED Talks have been busy over the past week. Below, a few newsy highlights. Inside the mind of a murderer. What makes murderers do what they do? A BBC piece revealed that some murderers have reduced activity in their prefrontal cortex, which controls emotional impulses, and over-activity in their amygdala, […]
Did you go outside and smile for the camera last Friday, like Carolyn Porco (watch her talk) asked you to, while the Cassini probe snapped a photo of Jupiter with Earth in the background? In this hyper-detailed post from Diary of Numbers, the author calculates the odds that one of your photons is in the […]
Sharing is caring, and here at TED we do a lot of both — especially on social media. You can like our Facebook page, catch us on Instagram and follow us on 19 active Twitter handles. That’s a lot, we know, but sometimes good sharing means not oversharing. In other words, we want to make sure you get the information […]