In celebration of the World Cup, Adidas has launched a series of unconventional, high-profile ads across Germany. We just laid eyes on this one: A 9,000-square-foot fresco, painted Sistine-chapel-wise on the ceiling of Cologne’s central train station. It took Hamburg-based illustrator Felix Reidenbach 40 days to complete this pantheon of soccer gods, featuring 10 superstars […]
We applauded last fall, when Penguin released a series of beautiful paperbacks, breathing new life into Great Ideas. We’re gushing all over again, now that the second series has arrived, with 20 more brilliant little books. (They arrived in discerning bookstores, like New York’s Three Lives & Co., last week.) The lovely lightweight volumes feature […]
An inspired piece of design news out of the UK: Mike Spindle, who’s spent most of his career designing Formula One race cars, spent the last five years designing a better wheelchair: One that’s lighter, more stable, more versatile, and way better looking. The Trekinetic K2, unveiled at the Mobility Roadshow in Gloucestershire, UK, has […]
Did you know that Robert Wright (TED2006), author of The Moral Animal and Nonzero, hosts an interview program called Meaning of Life TV on Slate? Me neither. But I wasn’t surprised to see the guest list filled with TED favorites (Dan Dennett, Freeman Dyson, Edward Wilson…), exploring the territory where physics meets philosophy: Do indidividual […]
The blogosphere itself is a fine example of what Yale Law Professor Yochai Benkler (TEDGlobal) writes about in The Wealth of Networks: The astounding cultural output resulting from the large-scale, grassroots collaborations digital technologies make possible. (Previous TEDBlog coverage) So it seems only fitting that within two months of its publication, Benkler’s book has inspired […]
Sparkline (n.) A small, data-rich, word-sized graphic that can be inserted into text, and understood at a glance. Named by Edward Tufte, and explained in a chapter of his upcoming book, Beautiful Evidence. Further reading: Great examples at the Information Aesthetics blog, where sparklines are used to visualize site stats, like daily visitors and even […]
In one of the most bizarre science breakthroughs in recent memory, British and South African doctors have reported three cases of semi-comatose patients who were roused to a waking, interactive state by … a sleeping pill. The effect was discovered by accident: Doctors had administered the sleeping pill, Zolpidem (better known in the US by […]
When architect and stage designer David Rockport (TED ‘97, ‘99, ‘02) was asked to design the interior of the new JetBlue terminal at JFK, he brought in a rather unlikely partner: Broadway choreographer Jerry Mitchell. The pair had collaborated before (on shows like Hairspray, Rocky Horror, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels). Now, they’re re-imagining airport foot traffic […]
Are fossil records a thing of the past? Evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson (TED2005) thinks they may be. In Sunday’s New York Times, she made a case (aimed at the general public) that DNA sequencing and analysis now provides more detailed proof of evolution than fossils ever could. True to form, Judson — who is known […]
I received an email from my dad this afternoon saying somewhat incredulously, "Nicholas is really making this thing happen." For those of you who don’t know, "this thing" is the Hundred Dollar Laptop and Nicholas is long-time TED friend and speaker, Nicholas Negroponte. The evidence that Nicholas is making the Hundred Dollar Laptop happen can […]
I’m just back from an incredible few days in Tanzania with Bono and his team, part of his current tour through Africa. Brian Williams of the NBC Nightly News is joining him in Ghana this evening, for the show’s first live broadcast from Africa. I’m sure it’s worth watching. (6.30pm ET, 5.30pm PT, and also […]
If you liked the Sony Bouncy Balls ad, you’ll love this homage, filmed in Wales for the soft drink, Tango.
When Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” premiered at Cannes this weekend, TED2006 photographer Robert Leslie was on hand to capture some behind-the-scenes pics. Below: Pay no attention to those name placards … Director David Guggenheim, movie star Al Gore and producer Lawrence Bender answer questions at the press conference for “An Inconvenient Truth”; Gore at […]
At TED2006, we devoted an unusual amount of our “interstitial” time to a single advertiser, showing three different ads from Honda, all brilliant in their own way. Mind you, Honda has no affiliation with TED. We just like their ads. And we’re not the only ones. Two of the Honda spots — Choir and Impossible […]
In perhaps the most surprising collaboration to come out of TED, string quartet Ethel has recorded a lively little number with … Einstein the talking parrot. We give to you: Also Spracht Einstein. Delightful.
At TED2006, and again at our TED screening of “An Inconvenient Truth,” we witnessed the reinvention of Al Gore as global warming warrior and … stand-up comic? The former VP, not known previously for his stage presence, was surprisingly hilarious in both his rehearsed bits and off-the-cuff comments (to say nothing of the Melissa Etheridge […]