On St. Patrick’s Day in 2008, Chris Downey, an architect, planner and consultant who lives in Piedmont, California, some 10 miles east of San Francisco, reported to the hospital for surgery to remove a brain tumor. The procedure was a success. But two days later, his sight started to fail. On the third day, it […]
It might seem strange to show a gallery of images of places the narrator can’t actually see. But as architect Chris Downey explains, he picked these locations in San Francisco because they’re meaningful to him, not because they’re photogenic (though as it happens, they’re that too). “As with any large, great city, its success is […]
In today’s talk, pundit Sally Kohn shares what it’s like to be progressive, gay and … working for Fox News. The key: emotional correctness, when people look past their political differences and try to understand what the other is thinking on a human level. It’s a vision so powerful that her hometown of Allentown, Pennsylvania, […]
Toby Eccles, whose talk about Social Impact Bonds was published yesterday, has been busy since he gave his talk at TEDGlobal in June. Eccles, founder of the nonprofit Social Finance, now spends about half his time on Development Impact Bonds, a spinoff of his original idea. Where SIBs seek private funders to invest in social causes, with payments […]
David Christian had little idea what was in store when he stepped on the set of The Colbert Report last month. Having lived in Australia for years, Christian wasn’t familiar with the show and its special brand of political satire. And yet, sitting across the table from Stephen Colbert — a perfectly placed Colbert Nation […]
Gratefulness isn’t always something that comes easily. Below, some reading and watching to get you into a thankful headspace. Watch: “Want to be happy? Be thankful.” This TED Talk from David Steindl-Rast is the perfect Thanksgiving appetizer. In it, the Benedictine monk and interfaith scholar talks about what, exactly, it means to be grateful and offers a simple process for living […]
You could, on first glance, see Dhaka as a fast and loose place, the kind of city that draws people in, churns them around and spits them out after a few tough years. Many in Dhaka face circumstances similar to those in other South Asian cities: poverty, limited education, exploitation. Dhaka itself sits at or […]
Nurur Rahman Khan was born and bred in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A practicing architect and university lecturer, Khan alternately marvels at the city’s convivial culture and bemoans its economic and structural deficiencies. He’ll brook no debate over the quality of Dhaka’s food, though: It’s miraculously good. Here’s a taste of Khan’s Dhaka, photographed by Mohammad Tauheed, a […]
The world’s population is getting older. Across the globe, people are living longer thanks to improvements in healthcare, nutrition and technology. This population shift brings with it incredible possibilities, but also a new set of challenges. How do we care for our elderly? In today’s talk, Jared Diamond examines the vast differences in how societies […]
“When I started working in this field, the word ‘drone’ wasn’t used at all!” Sergei Lupashin says a little plaintively. “We called them UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, and they were clearly flying robots. Nowadays it’s all a bit more mixed up; you have to take extra steps to convince people that what you’re doing is […]
When Cole Plante starts to DJ, you’d never guess he’s only 17. His hands move over the mixing board with the confidence of someone older, purposefully weaving over the knobs that adjust the sounds and beats. On some of the adjustments, his grip holds a few beats, while others are so fleeting his reflex gives […]
Above: Reggie Watts demonstrates the littleBits SynthKit For the last week, the internet has been grooving to the video above of Reggie Watts making some funky noise with the newly launched SynthKit — the latest offering from littleBits electronic building block company, and the product of a three-way partnership between littleBits, Watts and world-renowned synthmasters KORG. The […]
New Zealand is located on a continental plate boundary, so earthquakes aren’t unexpected. But no one was ready for the quake that hit at 12.51 pm on February 22, 2011. “Everyone in Christchurch will never forget that moment,” says Danny Squires, who lives in the city with his wife and four children. Even though they’d […]
Christchurch-based Danny Squires is director of Space Craft Systems and co-founder of WikiHouse/NZ, a global project aiming to make it possible for anyone to design, download and “print” houses. Squires was going about his daily business in Christchurch on February 22, 2011, when a 6.3-magnitude earthquake ripped through the city, causing horrific damage and killing […]
Andreas Raptopoulos and his colleagues at Matternet are attempting to create a network of drones that operate like the internet, only for tangible objects. This company — which sprung out of an idea surfaced at Singularity University in 2011 — aims to deliver items wherever they are needed, even if no usable roads go there. […]
Marc Goodman is the founder of the Future Crimes Institute and chair for Policy, Law and Ethics at Singularity University. At TEDGlobal in Edinburgh in 2012, Goodman shared a sobering look at the dark side of technology in his talk, “A vision of crimes in the future.” The TED Blog asked him to share his latest thinking on […]