News.com’s blog reports on how much oil we have left, in the estimate of Chevron CTO Don Paul: About 1 trillion gallons that we can extract, and another trillion that, for now, we can’t. In a hallway conversation with a News.com reporter, Chevron’s Paul estimated that we will have consumed half of all the oil […]
Some familiar TED faces and themes turn up in Popular Mechanics‘ 2007 Breakthrough Awards, published in the magazine’s November issue. Jeff Han‘s multitouch wall (watch his 2006 TEDTalk) and Hod Lipson‘s print-anything printer (related to his work on robots) are named as two of the awards’ “8 Bold Ideas” for 2007. If you were moved […]
The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moons celebrates its diamond anniversary this week by releasing a new collection of images, movies and maps. If you could not get enough of Carolyn Porco‘s images from her talk at TED2007, head over to the CICLOPS site for new and just-posted archival images, as well as a […]
Game designer Will Wright (watch his TEDTalk) will become a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) this month — one of only 67 ever named, and the first video game designer, reports Variety. A few other BAFTA Fellows: Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Elizabeth Taylor … Since 2006, BAFTA — essentially […]
Gore gets it! – the prize, and the crisis. Deeply rooted in science, Al Gore has established climate crisis as a moral and spiritual imperative. Now we must act with speed on an unprecedented scale. Speed and scale. — John Doerr I have seen the VP’s passion since my early days photographing him in Washington […]
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 second in the series. When I facilitate a gathering of wild tiger experts next month in India, Al […]
Here is Jack Oswald’s story of Al Gore’s impact: Prior to seeing Al Gore’s Climate Crisis presentation, I had always thought that he was a good person. He had always appeared bright, capable and well-meaning. On the night of the presentation, Al Gore was “on fire.” His true personality really came through, and I was […]
This morning, Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007, “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” Gore will be sharing his prize […]
Carolyn Porco‘s Saturn imaging team has found “tell-tale clues” to a centuries-old mystery surrounding Saturn’s moon Iapetus — why is it stark white on one side, coal black on the other? It’s a striking oddity in a sky full of gray rocks. As the CICLOPS site reports, the white side of this moon is covered […]
Updates from TED speakers: After a whirlwind of media speculation over the weekend following a story by The Guardian, biologist Craig Venter (watch his TED2005 speech) will announce today at the annual meeting of his institute in San Diego that his team has built a synthetic chromosome, using lab chemicals. “A giant leap forward in […]
On Guardian Unlimited, Charles Arthur offers a neat roundup of new ways to see all kinds of data with fresh eyes. On the list: Jonathan Harris‘ “We Feel Fine” project (watch his TEDTalk) and, of course, Hans Rosling‘s Gapminder tools (watch his TEDTalks from 2006 and 2007). The story is part of Guardian Unlimited’s Free […]
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (watch her TEDTalks from TED2007 and TEDGlobal07), the crusading economist and former Finance Minister of Nigeria, has been appointed a Managing Director of the World Bank. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala will oversee the World Bank’s work in Africa, South Asia, and Europe and Central Asia. “Her commitment to the developing world is unparalleled,” said Robert […]
Paul MacCready‘s first try for the Kremer Prize for human-powered flight, in 1976, was his Gossamer Condor, a Mylar-covered aircraft powered by a very, very tenacious bicyclist. Filmmaker Ben Shedd followed MacCready’s team as they designed and built this elegant plane. Shedd’s resulting documentary, The Flight of the Gossamer Condor, won an Academy Award in […]
Live-blog heroes Ethan Zuckerman and Bruno Giussani, veterans of TED and other conferences around the world, have worked together to share what they know in the six-page, illustrated guidebook “Tips for Conference Bloggers.” It’s full of ideas for how to prepare, manage your time and your gear, organize your fellow bloggers into a news-gathering team, […]
Al Gore (TED2006 speech) at last week’s Clinton Global Initiative: “The key to fighting global poverty is to have the wealthy nations and the developing nations join together to reduce global warming … What we need is a global Marshall plan to make the creation of jobs around the reduction of carbon the central principle […]
Last night at Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center, Bono (watch his 2005 TEDTalk) and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (watch her TEDTalks) accepted the Liberty Medal, honoring Bono and DATA for their work in Africa. One of the local papers put together a fascinating section to go along with the event: “Philadelphia’s Team Africa,” profiling 10 locals in diverse […]