We live in a sea of data — and visualizations can help us understand the movement of individual waves. Great data visualizations can gather up enormous volumes of information, revealing the (sometimes sublimely beautiful) patterns underneath. Next week at TED2015, Manuel Lima (founder of Visual Complexity) will explore how one particular data representation — the […]Read more
This morning, the Solar Impulse 2 — a plane powered only by the sun — took off from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, sailing past the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque on the first leg of its journey around the world. This flight is the culmination of 12 years of dreaming by TED speaker […]
The goal of our conference app, TEDConnect? To get you to put down your phone and talk to people. “The idea is to foster in-person connection — to allow attendees to find one another, to meet, to have interesting things to talk about,” says Will True, our product development manager who helped create the app, available […]
“The White City.” “The City of the Monkey God.” “The Place of Cacao.” Rumors of a majestic city nestled in the remote rainforest of Honduras — referred to by all of these names — have circulated for centuries, wedging their way into Honduran national identity. They seemed to be the stuff of legend. Until a […]
On this weekend’s episode of Super Soul Sunday, Oprah Winfrey asks TED Books author Pico Iyer to explain more precisely what he means by the word ‘stillness.’ It’s not so much about meditation, he says. “It’s sanity and it’s balance, and it’s a chance to put things in perspective,” he says. Like so many others, […]
Two days before TEDGlobal 2012, Will True found himself on a train, trekking across Scotland on a mission. See, one of six cases sent by our video team from New York City to Edinburgh for the conference was stuck in Scottish customs. Its contents: hundreds of terabytes of high-speed hard drives. TED Talks are filmed […]
This Friday, TED Radio Hour kicks off its third season. As one of the editorial consultants for the show on TED’s side, I am always impressed with the way Guy Raz and his team experiment with new ways of storytelling. In Friday’s episode, we’ll solve for x; the week after, we’ll take a look at […]
TED Prize winners turn ideas into world-changing projects, with $1 million in seed money and the TED community’s support. Beyond having a solid track record of making high-impact change in their communities and beyond, all prize winners must be capable of one thing: dreaming big. Does this sound like you or someone you know? This […]
The core of StoryCorps is listening. It’s about honoring another human being by simply listening to them. The joke, of course, is that I’m a terrible listener. I really am — ask anybody. I’m just so easily distracted by my phone or email. I’m terrible. But that’s why StoryCorps is so important. It’s about learning […]
Calling all self-proclaimed tech nerds! TED has long been known for demos that set everyone in the theatre a-buzz. Here’s a look back at some memorable tech demos from TED and TEDGlobals past, to get you excited for those coming at TED2015. Hugh Herr: The new bionics that let us run, climb and dance On stage […]
Please enjoy your weekly roundup of news briefs from members of the TED community: A 21st-century break-in. Security futurist Marc Goodman knows that technology can make both life and crime easier. In a post on Boing Boing excerpted from his book Future Crimes, he tells the story of an auto trading company that installed tiny remote-controlled boxes […]
When he was 26, Kailash Satyrathi left his job as an electrical engineer. It sounded like a crazy move, but he was determined to help children in India who were forced into labor. Satyrathi has spent three decades raiding factories where children are held as slaves, building a movement to make the employment of children […]
Award-winning photojournalist Boniface Mwangi captured the 2007-2008 post-election violence in Kenya unflinchingly through the lens of his camera. But the horrors he witnessed propelled him into a new career as an activist and artist. Here, Mwangi talks to the TED Blog about the events that led him to stand up against injustice, literally, rather than simply document it. Tell us about your experience on […]