As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere. We know so little about nature, he says, that we’re still discovering tiny organisms indispensable to life; and yet we’re steadily, methodically, vigorously destroying nature. Wilson identifies […]
Accepting his 2007 TED Prize, James Nachtwey talks about his decades as a photojournalist. A slideshow of his photos, beginning in 1981 in Northern Ireland, reveals two parallel themes in his work. First, as he says: “The frontlines of contemporary wars are right where people live.” Street violence, famine, disease: he has photographed all these […]
Google has acquired Hans Rosling’s Trendalyzer software, which the Swedish demographer and his team at Gapminder have developed since 2005 to generate more useful visualizations of facts and figures. Rosling has met the Google founders at TED2006, where he gave a thought-provoking speech on the nature of statistics and the general misinterpretation of them (see […]
Quotes of the day: Explorer Bill Stone: "The traditional approach to space exploration has been to carry all the fuel you need, and to carry everybody back in case of emergency. But to prime the pump that will take us beyond, boldness is required: the first expeditionary team must travel to the Moon without the […]
Wow! Day Three at TED2007 ROCKED! A magical day which got crank-started by a truly electric presentation on the perils of Local Warming. This was a day which just can’t wait for the TEDTalks to come out. Daniel Goleman made a wonderful connection between emotional intelligence and the empathy which will be required — by […]
Quotes of the day: Economist Emily Oster: "Not having sex is like an investment, so you value it more the longer you expect to live in the future." (About AIDS in Africa) "Lost" creator JJ Abrams: "Mystery is more important that knowledge." Participant Production’s Jeff Skoll: "I asked John Gardne how to best use the […]
Lorna Herf is an illustrator and designer from Los Angeles attending TED and she’s been blogging on lornamatic in a pretty original and compelling way – she’s sketchblogging the conference. Check out her blog. Here are her "notes" from four speakers: Carolyn Porco (session 1), John Doerr (session 3), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (session 3) and Michael […]
Oh boy, Day Two of TED2007 was so full of interesting stuff that it bled in to Day Three, which is why I find myself here at 4am in the morning writing this blog post. Again, I’ll make no attempt to talk about everything (see Bruno’s posts for that point of view), just a few […]
Quotes of the day: Former US president Bill Clinton, TEDprize 2007 winner: "Help me in creating a better future for Rwanda by assisting my foundation, in partnership with the Rwandan government, to build a sustainable, high quality rural health system for the whole country, that can then be a model for other countries. We have […]
I had my mind blown in a thousand different directions by TED2007 today. My big impression was having felt the future, in myriad ways. From hallway conversations to the content of speaker presentations to the feeling of just being a part of it all, it was a fabulous first day. My assignment, as handed down […]
Quotes of the day: Cassini imaging team head Carolyn Porco: "So there are possibly liquid water, organic materials and excessive heat on Saturn and its moons. Which means that Saturn could be a place were life is possible. If we can demonstrate that Genesis has happened not once (Earth) but twice (Saturn) then we can […]
The original version of this post contained links to a few bloggers that were at TED2007 and were likely to blog part or all of the conference. I’ve updated the list, post-conference, on March 16, adding more bloggers and links to some press coverage. Blogs: Bruno Giussani – LunchOverIP and HuffingtonPost Chris Suellentrop – Wired […]
Tomorrow I head down to Monterey for the TED conference. I look forward to TED all year. It is a fantastic chance to catch up with old friends, meet some really interesting new ones and exercise my brain and my imagination. But, as with TEDs of the past, I find myself stuck — I am […]
Minus one (day). TED2007 starts tomorrow Wednesday. The whole team is in Monterey getting things ready. Here a few impressions of today, starting with the preparation of the main stage: Just outside, tech and decoration materials are being delivered: Speakers’ pictures are ready to be hung on the walls: The simulcast room is being assembled: […]
Minus five (days) on the countdown to TED2007. The whole team is at work applying the final touches and extinguishing the inevitable last-minute fires and preparing to head to Monterey (which also means that from this point on, no one on the team can guarantee to respond to individual email or phone requests… Apologies). In […]
Genomics pioneer Craig Venter takes a break from his epic round-the-world expedition to talk about the millions of genes his team has discovered so far in its quest to map the ocean’s biodiversity.