If you studiously avoided all news coming out of Utah last month, you may have missed the fact that Al Gore has emerged a movie star. An Inconvenient Truth, which premiered to standing ovations and press accolades in Park City, catapulted the former VP to celeb status at Sundance, where he stole as many headlines […]
Lots of commentary in the blogosphere this week on 3-month-old start-up FON, which just received backing from Google and Skype, as well as Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures. FON provides a model for expanding wireless internet access across the world, by offering subscribers financial incentives for sharing their bandwidth. Their goal is to become the […]
As I watched the Disney Channel with my kids this weekend I was horrified by what I saw. Disney Records has released an album of re-recorded DEVO tunes sung by a pack of prepubescent Brittany Spears wannabes. The album is called DEVO 2.0 and, to my greater shock and dismay, the music for the album […]
During the TED salon this fall at Joe’s Pub, we were treated to the world premiere of Colobus, a dark and unsettling orchestral piece by TEDster Michael Montes, who also composed the title sequences for TED2005 and TED2006. This weekend, Montes has yet another premiere: This time, a TV commercial for the Cadillac Escalade, scored […]
As Superbowl Sunday approaches, our thoughts turn lightly toward … TV advertising, what else? And if the build-up to the game has you hungry for those great ads of Superbowls past, it might be time to revisit Apple’s legendary 1984 commercial (which aired only once), as well as the delightful 2005 spoof. And to really […]
Last month, Google released a new video service, allowing users to preview and purchase videos online. If you’ve yet to try the service out — and you just don’t have time to troll for content — here’s an easy way to preview: Spend 20 minutes and 99 cents watching Steven Johnson (TED03) on the Charlie […]
Many of you have no doubt read Godel Escher Bach, the brilliant and entertaining treatise by Douglas Hofstadter, drawing connections between the work of the legendary mathematician, artist and musician. In today’s New York Times, a compelling — though admittedly less sweeping — essay by Arthur I. Miller explores the connections between Einstein and Mozart. […]
Scientific journals are taking measures to detect digitally manipulated images.
To continue on the movie-themed posts, I have always been enthralled by the powerful impact of sound and music in film. While a student at Stanford I took a great class entitled "The Physics of Music" which would have more appropriately been entitled "Really Cool Field Trips in Music." We visited Dolby Labs, Meyer Sound, […]
When it comes to indie films, there’s Sundance, and then there’s channel101. Billing itself as "The Unavoidable Future of Entertainment," channel101 is an example of what happens when the long tail meets a disruptive business model. Given that "good enough" video can be created these days for a few thousand bucks, anyone can make a […]
Sundance shorts area available online for the first time, with such gems as “Robin’s First Date” and “Gopher Broke.”
At TED2005 and TEDGlobal, genomics pioneer Craig Venter mentioned — casually, as always — his desire to create a fully synthetic lifeform, preferably one that will serve society’s greater needs. Venter’s work is singularly ambitious, but he’s not the only one with his eyes on that prize. The idea of designing living machines (albeit ones […]
Some of the most memorable moments at any given TED come from the hand-picked performers, who often make us feel we’ve unearthed a rare gem. We had that rush of discovery all over again when we learned three powerful chanteuses of TEDs past will appear next week at New York’s Joe’s Pub. On Monday, Susheela […]
At TEDGlobal, Carl Honore explained the motivation behind his book, In Praise of Slowness: While reading his son a “One-Minute Bedtime Story,” he suddenly saw the lunacy in his speed-obsessed life, and set out to explore the alternative: a worldwide slow movement that offered a different approach to eating, living, and being with each other. […]
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons […]
At long last, Google Earth — which has been demoed at several TEDs in different contexts — has been released for the Mac. TEDsters got an early glimpse of Google Earth at TED2002 when Dan Dubno gave a fly-through of its previous incarnation, Keyhole. And Domus editor Stefano Boeri used Google Earth to explore the […]