Law professor Yochai Benkler explains how collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organization. By disrupting traditional economic production, copyright law and established competition, they’re paving the way for a new set of economic laws, where empowered individuals are put on a level playing field with industry giants. (Recorded July […]
Tod Machover of MIT’s Media Lab invented the musical technology behind Guitar Hero, and here he talks about what’s coming next. Listen for some brand-new ways to interface with music — to play it, compose it, enjoy it. Machover then introduces Dan Ellsey, a composer with cerebral palsy who uses some new tools to write […]
When photographer Edward Burtynsky won the 2005 TED Prize, he wished that the TED community would help him teach kids how to live green. This month, his web cartoon series for kids, The Greens, turns 1 year old — and celebrates 3 million page views! Written and produced by WGBH in Boston (with partners including […]
This month’s National Geographic has a great story on biomimetics, or biomimicry, the art of studying nature’s engineering. If you’re inspired by this story, check out these TEDTalks for more on biomimicry. Clicking on a name (or an image above) will launch the TEDTalks player >> + Scientist Robert Full (whose work with geckos is […]
Johnny Lee demos his amazing Wii Remote hacks, bending the $40 game part so it powers a digital whiteboard, a multitouch display and a head-mounted 3-D viewer. A multi-ovation demo from TED2008. (Recorded March 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 05:40.) Watch Johnny Lee’s demo on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment […]
The beautiful film that helped launch the Encyclopedia of Life has been nominated for a 2008 Webby Award. Created by Avenue A | Razorfish, the film is just one outcome of E.O. Wilson’s 2007 TED Prize wish: to “help create the key tool that we need to inspire preservation of Earth’s biodiversity: the Encyclopedia of […]
This morning, TED.com received three nominations for the 2008 Webby Awards — for Best Navigation/Structure, Best Visual Design – Function, and Podcasts. You can visit the Webby Awards’ People’s Voice site to vote for TED.com and for your other favorite finalists. (Voting requires registration — we need your support.)
In Al Gore’s brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of “generational mission” — the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement — to set it right. […]
In keeping with the theme of TED2008, professor Stephen Hawking asks some Big Questions about our universe — How did the universe begin? How did life begin? Are we alone? — and discusses how we might go about answering them.(Recorded March 2008 in Monterey, California, and in Cambridge, UK. Duration: 10:12.) Watch Stephen Hawking’s […]
What would a music video look like if it were purely directed by the music? If it were not a brand-building tool but simply a visual expression of a great song? Designer Jakob Trollback shares the results of his experiment in the form. The song is “Moonlight in Glory,” from David Byrne and Brian Eno’s […]
During the BBC World Debate hosted at TED2008 last month, a brief technical delay threatened to become an awkward, show-stopping break. Then a heckler stood up in the crowd. As Wired’s Epicenter reports: … a voice behind me spoke up, presumably a heckler, and began speaking loudly as if he were conducting a live news […]
Unveiled at TED2008: We all know Leonardo Da Vinci’s life and work — but until now, we have not known what he looked like as a man. Illustrator and activist Siegfried Woldhek used some thoughtful image-analysis techniques to find what he believes is the true face of Leonardo. Announcing his discovery for the first time […]
Clifford Stoll could talk about the atmosphere of Jupiter. Or hunting KGB hackers. Or Klein bottles, computers in classrooms, the future. But he’s not going to. Which is fine, because it would be criminal to confine a man with interests as multifarious as Stoll’s to give a talk on any one topic. Instead, he simply […]
From last month’s TED conference: Neuroscientist Christopher deCharms demos an amazing new way to use fMRIs to watch the brain in action. Using this technology, if you move your arm, get angry, feel pain, you can see what it looks like in your brain as it happens — and then you can learn to control […]
From the DLD Conference in Munich: Architect Norman Foster discusses his own work to show how computers can help architects design buildings that are green, beautiful and “basically pollution-free.” He shares projects from throughout his career, from the pioneering roof-gardened Willis Building (1975) to the London Gherkin (2004). He also comments on two upcoming megaprojects: […]
Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, physicist Neil Turok speaks out for talented young Africans starved of opportunity: by unlocking and nurturing the continent’s creative potential, we can create a change in Africa’s future. Turok asks the TED community to help him expand the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences by opening 15 new centers across Africa […]