[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR2E9i3g0po&w=560&h=315%5D Predictions are a mug’s game. If they come true, you likely didn’t push your thinking hard enough. If they don’t come true, you risk looking like an idiot. Nonetheless, many speakers at the annual TED conference have taken the plunge and proffered thoughts of what the future might look like. The video above […]
by Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Google How will our minds be blown in the next 30 years? Well, that’s quite a long time, given the acceleration in history. Still, I’ll be brave and make six hypotheses. 1. Machine Intelligence I think that just as the Internet has been such a great driver of change across […]
One of the installations at TED this year challenged attendees to vote on ten potential drivers of change in the next 30 years. The crowd had their say via that enormously sophisticated piece of technology, the sticky note. As we could likely have predicted, there wasn’t much consensus among those in Vancouver, but the range […]
by Nilofer Merchant In the next 30 years, the full Star Trek story will actually come true. Already, we’ve seen many of the show’s far-fetched ideas come to fruition. Everyone now carries a communicator, aka the smart phone. We have medical devices that test for diseases with light, not by drawing blood (like new tests for anemia […]
by Andrew Blau, Deloitte Technology advances over the last 30 years mean that we have crossed an invisible threshold: for the first time in human history, we now live on a legible planet. What will blow our minds in the next 30 years is what it will mean when almost anyone can read and understand the world […]
At TED2013, Amanda Palmer gave a talk called “The art of asking” about her experience funding an album on Kickstarter; it quickly went viral on TED.com. A year later, Palmer was back for a panel at TED2014 covering crowd-funding creative projects. She was joined live by her husband, writer Neil Gaiman, and Kickstarter cofounder Yancey Strickler, and through Skype by game […]
As the Fellows program turns five, we catch up with Iranian filmmaker Taghi Amirani – a member of the Fellows inaugural class and the first recipient of the TED Fellows Hero award – to get the scoop on the premiere of Amirani Media’s latest film, We Are Many (see the trailer, above) – a documentary on the February 15, 2003, global […]
Advertising for telephone companies is all around us. In the United States, AT&T commands us to “Rethink possible,” Verizon loves to ask “Can you hear me now?,” and T-Mobile calls for our attention with lots of hot pink. In Canada, it’s hard to escape ads for Rogers Wireless, Telus and Bell Wireless. And in the […]
Susan Cain is planning a Quiet Revolution. In her classic talk from TED2012, she spoke up for introverts, pointing out the many ways our culture encourages extroversion. “I wasn’t prepared for the intensity and voracity of response to these ideas,” Cain tells the TED Blog two years later. “There’s an enormous hunger for recognition, understanding and […]
For years now, Target has invited designers like Isaac Mizrahi (watch his TED Talk), Diane von Furstenberg (check out her TED playlist) and, most recently, abstract pattern-master Peter Pilotto to dream up collections. So when it came to creating the Target Design Café at TED2014, we knew it was going to be cool. The space […]
By Janet Lee In Geoffrey Canada’s impassioned TED Talk last year, he urged the American education system to update its business model to integrate more science and technology into the curriculum, particularly for lower-income communities. One study that especially troubled Canada showed that lower income students are more prone to losing the knowledge they’ve acquired […]
Bionics designer Hugh Herr spoke today on the TED stage about a future in which disability is a mere memory – a future he believes is both imminent and imperative. With pant legs cropped to reveal his own two bionic legs (“I made sure to shave today,” he joked), he explained the fascinating details of […]
The illustrious questioner Charlie Rose and Google cofounder and CEO Larry Page take their seats on the TED stage for a Q&A during Session 6: Wired. They talk about Page’s latest projects, Snowden’s appearance and the underlying ethos that powers Page’s work. Below is an edited version of their conversation. Charlie Rose: Where is Google, […]
There are two kinds of people who fly: those who want to talk to the person sitting next to them and those who want a quiet ride. Luckily, Delta has created a sensory experience for both kinds of travelers in their Connectivity Space, outside the theater at TED2014. For the connectors, we’ll start with a […]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1O97HZev7A&w=586&h=330] Transparency isn’t just a nice-to-do for businesses. It’s essential, says Charmian Gooch, the anti-corruption crusader who accepted the TED Prize tonight. On the TED2014 stage, Gooch revealed her wish for the world. “My wish is for us to know who owns and controls companies, so that they can no longer be used anonymously against […]
At TED2014, Charmian Gooch made the TED Prize wish to launch a new era of openness in business and end the phenomenon of anonymous companies. “Anonymous companies are making it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to find the actual human beings responsible for really bad crimes,” she said. So how do anonymous companies work? This infographic explains the […]