Last spring, I gushed about the magic that was made when Jill Sobule and Julia Sweeney shared a stage for the first time. The two met at TED2006, confessed to being long-time fans of each other’s work, and resolved to collaborate on a show. The result was an uncategorizable delight, mixing stories and song. If […]
This morning, Virgin CEO Sir Richard Branson offered the first public look at the rocketship expected to make space tourism a reality. The mock-up — revealed at WIRED/NextFest in New York — is based on the design of SpaceShipOne, the Ansari X-Prize-winning craft designed by Burt Rutan (TED2006). (Watch for Rutan’s TEDTalk later this fall.) […]
Even if there weren’t two TEDsters in the running, we’d be keeping a close watch on the race to succeed Kofi Annan as U.N. Secretary General, when he steps down at year’s end. One in a series of informal votes takes place today at UN Headquarters. In today’s New York Times, an Op/ED piece titled […]
San Francisco investor Peter A. Thiel (co-founder of PayPal) is putting $3.5 million into the antiaging research pioneered by TED speaker Aubrey de Grey (see past posts on him). The money will come in annual installments of $500,000 over the next three years for a pilot project, plus matching money for every dollar donated by […]
For a long time, TEDPrize winner Cameron Sinclair has encapsulated his philosophy in a slogan that recently turned into the title of his inspiring book: "Design like you give a damn" (see Cameron’s speech on TEDtalks – or if you are in New York see him live this coming Wednesday 20 at the NYPL). Now, […]
To TEDsters, Google.org – the philanthropic arm of Google – is mostly known for the inspiring speech its director Larry Brilliant gave at TED last february, outlining a very compelling plan for an Internet-based system to rapidly detect disease outbreaks (see the original post from the conference or Brilliant’s TEDprize speech in video). A story […]
<!––>TEDPrize winner, Cameron Sinclair, and Architecture for Humanity co-founder, Kate Stohr, will be in NYC next week for the celebration of the launch of their book – Design Like You Give a Damn. They’re being interviewed by John Hockenberry at the New York Public Library on September 20th. A similar event is being planned for […]
At TED2006, Helen Fisher delivered an unforgettable talk (now available online) focusing largely on love: Its evolution, its vital importance to human society, and the science behind the stages of lust, infatuation, and long-term attachment. Inspired by Fisher — and, well, slightly disturbed by the biochemical basis of it all — singer/songwriter Jill Sobule penned […]
At the University of Chicago, Professor Michael C. LaBarbera has prepared a comprehensive analysis of the Biology of B-Movie Monsters. In it, he discusses the brittleness of King Kong’s bone structure, how Mothra breathes, and who would really win in a battle between a tiny-tiny man and a tarantula. Read the article before placing your […]
One of the "Ten Faces of Innovation" described in Tom Kelley’s recent book is that of the cross-pollinator, who "can create something new and better through an unexpected juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated ideas or concepts". Tom is the general manager of TEDPrize supporter IDEO. During a recent talk he mentioned as an example of cross-pollination […]
Every summer I escape California for Cape Cod in hopes of injecting my kids with a little bit of the East Coast. After settling in with the troupes, I quickly check the local papers to see what music and theater is playing during our stay. I’ve gotten pretty lucky in past years and this year […]
Sir Martin Rees is dismayed by the "worrisome lack of determination" shown last month in St Petersburg by the leaders of the G8 countries to accelerate the development of clean energy technologies. In an editorial published by the journal Science this week (only the abstract is available online), he calls for a significant increase in […]
Elevation Partners, a private-equity group of which U2 singer, make-poverty-history activist and TEDprize winner Bono is one of the 6 partners, has bought a "significant minority stake" (rumored to be of more than 40 percent, and worth US$ 250 to 300 million) in Forbes Media, which includes Forbes magazine and Forbes.com. Today’s International Herald Tribune […]
When my wife was pregnant with our first son and we began considering what to name him, I proposed Strad. To violinists (a group of which I at least once counted myself a member), Stradivarius is the epitome of perfection. While cries of horror from certain members of the family resulted in my son being […]
At TED2006, former MIT Media Lab Director Nicholas Negroponte outlined the challenges of producing the $100 laptop, which will be designed for — and only available to — children in the developing world. The key, he suggested, is scale. The economics will work when countries begin ordering them by the millions. Well, according to the […]
There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the death of electric cars, but gearheads ’round the world are eagerly awaiting the July 20 arrival of a new electric sports car from a startup by the name of Tesla Motors. Yes, an electric sports car. Actually, when you think about a sports car as a […]