Does your breathing pattern change when you open your e-mail inbox or check your Blackberry? Do you hold your breath? Longtime TEDster Linda Stone has given a name — “e-mail apnea” — to what she describes as a “temporary absence or suspension of breathing, or shallow breathing, while doing e-mail”. She has researched how this […]
Many TEDTalks explore themes of happiness — Stumbling on Happiness‘ Daniel Gilbert, Mattheiu Ricard (who’s been called the Happiest Man on Earth), happy designer Stefan Sagmeister, and many more … Now a recent story in Newsweek rounds up the latest on happiness’ opposite: sadness. It’s an interesting gloss on the growing happiness industry — and […]
In the past few weeks, Pangea Day has received more than 1,200 film submissions from filmmakers in 40 countries, and the films keep on coming! There are four days left until submissions close on February 15 — still time for you to submit your film and tell your story to the world on Pangea Day, […]
Via YouTube, here’s a neat commercial from BMW South Africa starring TEDTalks star Theo Jansen. Lots of footage of Theo and his beautiful strandbeests:
Check out Jill Sobule and Rives on NPR’s Bryant Park Project, singing about Super Tuesday, when “30 zillion voters in 20-something states” cast their primary votes, and the rest of us watch the returns all day long. As Jill says, “I have no life! All I do is watch news shows!” Rives’ snappy patter will […]
TEDGlobal star Franco Sacchi’s documentary This Is Nollywood will play at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston February 1 and 10. February 1 is the opening night of the African Film Festival at the MFA. More US screenings are set for LA and Portland, Oregon. This Is Nollywood tells the story of the booming […]
Pangea Day — the global film festival, happening May 10, 2008 — comes from a wish made by filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, who won the TED Prize in 2006. Listen to Jehane talk about her vision for the festival, which is taking busily taking shape now. And it’s not too late to submit your film for […]
It its newest issue, Newsweek publishes a detailed story on Microsoft’s Seadragon technology and the man behind it, Blaise Aguera y Arcas (who premiered it at TED07 last March, watch his speech), and discusses what it calls the "zoom interface": The Internet, it seems, doesn’t take advantage of how humans best process information. Evolution granted […]
The first of a new generation of digital three-dimensional films, U2 3D, is in limited release now. Already the entertainment world is abuzz: a rapturous reception at Sundance followed a smash-hit premiere at Cannes. TEDster and 3D evangelist Steve Schklair, founder and CEO of 3ality Digital Systems, drove the production and the revolutionary technology behind […]
Stephen Levitt calls him the “main character” in his TEDTalk on crack economics: Sudhir Venkatesh, the young grad student who infiltrated a Chicago crack-dealing gang. His research brought back reams of sociological data — and offers an unfiltered glimpse into gang life. In his new book, Gang Leader for a Day, Venkatesh writes about his […]
Photo: Smoke from burned houses, Eldoret, January 1. Courtesy
TEDGlobal 2007 speaker Binyavanga Wainaina has an opinion piece in today’s New York Times, “No Country for Old Hatreds,” that offers some backstory on the violent post-election crisis in Kenya. It’s not about “ancient feuds,” as some pundits have glibly summed it up. As he points out: Five years ago, we voted for a broad […]
Many TEDTalks speakers have answered the 2008 Edge Foundation question: What have you changed your mind about? Why? Among the more than 160 essays from leading thinkers — scientists, philosophers, artists — look for Wired’s Chris Anderson, Nick Bostrom, Stewart Brand, Richard Dawkins, Aubrey de Grey, Juan Enriquez, Helen Fisher, Neil Gershenfeld, Daniel Gilbert, Daniel […]
To help those of us making resolutions this week, here is a sampling of web tools for making a difference, inspired by TEDTalks speakers: + Share Ron Eglash‘s cool math tools, for studying math via breakdancing, Latin beats and cornrow braids + Dive into Richard Baraniuk‘s Connexions, a massive repository of open-source class materials + […]
Designer Ettore Sottsass died yesterday, at 90. The leader of a group of Italian designers who called themselves Memphis, he helped spark the postmodern design revolution, which mixed pure modernism with color and pattern, historic references and unabashed pastiche. Now-classic Memphis pieces such as his Carlton room divider rocked the design world in the early […]
Hoping to submit your short film or video for Pangea Day? There’s still a month and a half before the deadline — plenty of time to get familiar with your new videocamera. From the Pangea Day site: We’re looking for films that will make us laugh, cry, and gasp. They can be fiction, nonfiction, real […]