In partnership with the world-renowned Aspen Institute, we are proud to unveil TED@Aspen — a brand-new way to experience the full TED2008 program, simulcast live via satellite from Monterey. You can apply now to join the 300 people who will meet in Aspen to watch the simulcast — and some live speakers in Aspen — […]
Larry Lessig gets TEDsters to their feet, whooping and whistling, for this elegant presentation of “three stories and an argument.” The Net’s most adored lawyer brings together John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights, and the “ASCAP cartel” to build a case for creative freedom. He pins down the key shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property […]
What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Buddhist monk, photographer and author Matthieu Ricard has devoted his life to these questions, and his answer is influenced by his faith as well as by his scientific turn of mind: We can train our minds in habits of happiness. Interwoven with his talk are […]
Sherwin Nuland, the surgeon and author, talks about the development of electroshock therapy as a cure for severe, life-threatening depression. Midway through, his story turns personal. It’s a moving and deeply felt talk about relief, redemption, second chances. (Recorded February 2001 in Monterey, California. Duration: 22:30.) [ted id=189] Watch Sherwin Nuland’s talk on TED.com, where […]
Economist Eleni Gabre-Madhin outlines her ambitious vision to found the first commodities market in Ethiopia. Her plan would create wealth, minimize risk for farmers and turn the world’s largest recipient of food aid into a regional food basket. “There is no place in the world and no time in history that small farmers have had […]
Brain researcher Vilayanur Ramachandran talks about how brain damage can reveal the connection between the internal structures of the brain and the corresponding functions of the mind. He discusses three specific syndromes: phantom limb pain, synesthesia (when people hear color or smell sounds), and the Capgras delusion, when brain-damaged people believe their closest friends and […]
Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase investigates the ways we interact with technology — a quest that has led him from the villages of Uganda to the insides of our pockets. Along the way, he’s made some unexpected discoveries: about the ways illiterate people use their mobile phones, the new roles the mobile can play in global […]
Author and illustrator Maira Kalman talks about her life and work — from her New Yorker covers to her children’s books to her newest book for grownups, The Principles of Uncertainty. And yes, in person, she is as wonderful, as wise, and as deliciously off-kilter as her work. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: […]
As a collaborator on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), professor Michael Oppenheimer is honored by the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC, and shared with Al Gore, for its work in understanding the climate change crisis and pointing the way forward to solving it. At the 2007 TEDSalon, “Hot Science: Radical […]
Two days of sitting next to Al, with some intense ongoing conversation, proved to me that he was wholly focused on substance rather than form, and graced by a biting sense of humor, the real stuff of which leaders should be made! — Janet M. Baker Al Gore takes climate change personally — at TED, […]
As congratulations for Al Gore, 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner, pour in from the TED community, we asked people who saw Gore’s TED2006 presentations to talk about the impact his talks had on them. This is the first in a series, to be posted throughout the day. Al Gore’s talk at TED 2006 was a […]
The TEDTalks archive is rich in proof that Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, speaking at TED and elsewhere, truly has the power to inspire action. Producer and activist Jeff Skoll heard one of Gore’s PowerPoint lectures and started the ball rolling on An Inconvenient Truth — a film and website that became an incredibly […]
Engineer Hod Lipson demonstrates and talks about a few of his cool little robots, which have the ability to learn, understand themselves and even self-replicate. At the root of this uncanny demo is a deep inquiry into the nature of how living beings learn and evolve, and how we might harness these processes to make […]
When Richard Branson was at school, his headmaster predicted he would wind up either a millionaire or in jail. Since then, he’s done both. He talks to TED’s Chris Anderson about the ups and the downs of his career, from his multibillionaire success to his multiple near-death experiences, from Virgin’s line of spacecraft to the […]
Dancer Kenichi Ebina moves his body in a manner that appears to defy the limits imposed by the human skeleton. He combines breakdancing and hip-hop with mime using movements that are simultaneously precise and fluid. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 03:44.) Watch Kenichi Ebina’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, […]
Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco says, “I’m going to take you on a journey.” And does she ever. Showing breathtaking images from the Cassini voyage to Saturn, she focuses on Saturn’s intriguing largest moon, Titan, with its deserts, mudflats and puzzling lakes, and on frozen Enceladus, which seems to shoot jets of ice. Could one of […]