As I write this, I’m somewhere over Nebraska, squished in the back of coach class. A perfect opportunity to re-read TED 2006 speaker Neil Gershenfeld’s delightful book Fab. Flipping through it reminded me once again of his exciting vision for our near-term material future. Imagine a world where anyone can make anything. Where, by using […]
If you studiously avoided all news coming out of Utah last month, you may have missed the fact that Al Gore has emerged a movie star. An Inconvenient Truth, which premiered to standing ovations and press accolades in Park City, catapulted the former VP to celeb status at Sundance, where he stole as many headlines […]
Each year, EDGE founder John Brockman poses a question to members of the so-called Third Culture. Last year’s question (What is it you believe but cannot prove?) was translated into an utterly delightful book. This year, Brockman ups the intellectual ante, asking, “What is your dangerous idea?” The provocative answers promise a lively year ahead […]
Time magazine gives the inaugural TED Prize Winner their big annual award. (Well, he has to share it with a Mr. and Mrs. Gates.) And if you missed the talk Bono gave at TED last year, there’s a transcript here, and link to Bono’s TEDTalk here. Well worth hearing.
Bjorn Lomborg publishes a new essay, “The Relative Unimportance of Global Warming.”
Researchers in Japan have invented a nimble humanoid robot that can regain its own footing after taking a tumble. Its secret lies in letting go of control: Rather than follow a strict set of predetermined rules, it makes on-the-fly adjustments based on body trajectory and momentum. This approach may sound familiar … it applies the […]