In a surprise talk tonight, Allan Adams took the stage to explain a remarkable discovery announced just yesterday. And since he’s here and is amazing, Randall Munroe of xkcd illustrated the talk. As Adams tells us, if you look into the night sky, you see stars … and if you look further, you see more stars. […]
What powers the journey to a better future? Some really big wishes, and even bigger ideas. Our speakers in this session all have the tenacity, hope and relentless optimism necessary to believe that we can make progress in solving some of the most intractable problems of our time. Here are the speakers who appeared in […]
Edward Snowden appeared on the TED stage earlier today via a telepresence robot, which he was able to control remotely. So after giving the talk, “Here’s how we take back the internet” — which is now live on TED.com now (after our production team edited it in record time) — Snowden didn’t sign off. He […]
By Liz Jacobs and Thu-Huong Ha Our brains work in mysterious ways. They make us laugh, they make us cry, and sometimes, they make us 19-year old geniuses. The 11 speakers in this All-Stars session specialize in areas of the brain as diverse as personality, trauma and gender, but they all agree: Our minds […]
By Liz Jacobs and Kate Torgovnick Are we on the brink of a resource crisis? All signs point to yes. As the human population grows, the planet is buckling under the pressure of our needs. In this inaugural All-Stars session, 11 classic TED speakers return to the stage to share their deep concern for preserving […]
“The whole planet needs a lot of energy,” begins Michel Laberge, in an understatement. So far, he says, we’ve been running on fossil fuels, and it’s been difficult to find something as cost-effective to replace them. Laberge is a fan of nuclear power, which he thinks is the best solution to that problem in the […]
“I am so happy to be here, because I can actually breathe the air,” says Peggy Liu, who lives in China, as she steps on the TED2014 stage. Her typical day begins not with checking the time, but by checking the air pollution levels on her phone to determine whether her children will need to wear […]
Gavin Schmidt is the author of Climate Change: Picturing the Science, described by Popular Mechanics as “the first book anyone seeking a layman’s understanding of the science of global warming should read.” He’s here to talk about the environment and the models we’ve built to understand this astonishingly complex issue. Because, for one thing, you can’t just […]
Today on stage at TED2014 magician and puzzler David Kwong blew minds when he pulled an audience member onstage, asked her to color in a few animals, and then revealed he was so sure he could predict her behavior that he had her choices written into the day’s New York Times crossword. Hm: What’s a […]
Magician and cruciverbalist David Kwong is one excited nerd. On stage at the end of an intense morning at TED2014 he pulls a random attendee on stage and asks her to color in five animals with different colors as he has his back turned. Kwong then predicts the right combination of colors and animals correctly, […]
When we think of cities, we think of buildings and skyscrapers and stray cats. For Amanda Burden, who spent 12 years as New York City’s director of urban planning, they’re primarily about people. They’re about where people go and where they meet — that’s the core of how cities work. And for the people, even more important than the […]
Bob Greenberg, founder and CEO of R/GA, dreamed up the opening titles for TED4 back in 1994, designing a delightful scroll of lines that playfully dance into the formation of the block letters of TED. Greenberg comes to TED2014 to tell us about a house. More specifically, his house. “I grew up in Chicago, and I […]
Though you may call him an artist, Carter think of himself as an industrial designer whose medium is type. When one designs a font, one deals closely with the technology that renders it, Carter explains, whether that’s a mechanical printing press or a central processing unit. “Type is something we consume in enormous quantities,” he […]
For TEDx organizers, the TEDx Workshop held each year at TED and TEDActive is a way to experience the behind-the-scenes action at what organizers affectionately call “the mothership.” To date, more than 9,000 TEDx events have taken place in 157 countries. At the heart of every TEDx event is an organizer, which is why events […]
Our world is constantly changing, and it is bold ideas that push this forward. Our speakers in this session are all big thinkers who are working to reshape the ways we see, think about, and interact with the world, from the mind behind some of your favorite fonts to an urban planner transforming New York […]
So here’s a surprise. Chris Anderson takes the stage to introduce a very special guest — who’s not actually here. Beaming in from a remote location in Russia, controlling a bot he can wheel around the stage to see the assembled audience, here’s arguably the most controversial figure in contemporary culture: Edward Snowden. As he […]