Anyone in the room here today, at the glossy Times Center in Times Square, has been affected by the imagination and tenacity of Janette Sadik-Khan. It was her vision that created the much-loved pedestrian zones on Broadway and the cool new CitiBikes. In 2008, when Sadik-Khan took the job as New York’s traffic commissioner, she saw […]
Capitalism and charity. A seemingly paradoxical combination. But could running charities like businesses foster the innovation and problem-solving needed to address the most pressing issues of our time? In his talk at TED2013, The way we think about charity is dead wrong, Dan Pallotta argued that the way we think about charity is dead wrong. We […]
Oh, the places you’ll go with TEDx. This week, we’ve been exploring everything beyond the urban jungle. We followed an explorer to the dark caverns of underground caves, an astronaut to outer space, a time lapse photographer to fields and mountain ranges, and a group of TEDx’ers to the top of snowy Mount Everest. This […]
TEDCity2.0 is a day-long TED event for urban innovators, organizers, stewards and builders–and it’s happening right now, with a hub event taking place at the Times Center in New York City, and 138 self-organized TEDx events also being held in 48 countries, including Vietnam, Malawi, Mexico and Egypt. Here’s what happened in the morning sessions: […]
By Courtney E. Martin and John Cary Curating the program for TEDCity2.0 — a one-day conference about the future of cities that takes place, gulp, today — was a true honor for us. The two of us come at cities from very different angles. John is trained as an architect, but has spent his career building the […]
In August, the first lab-grown beefburger was cooked and tasted in London. The verdict? “[It tasted] like an animal protein cake, said Josh Schonwald, author of The Taste of Tomorrow and one of the “lucky” few to taste the $330,000 morsel of petri dish meat. The future of slaughter-less meat is not far off. In fact, scientists project it […]
Apple’s iOS7 launched this morning, and on it, our new TED app. Below, we asked our in-house product development lead Thaniya Keereepart about the mobile update, asking her to share the team’s vision for taking an experience people loved and making it even more fluid. What makes this iOS7 version of the TED app different? […]
Over the past week, we’ve noticed a lot of fascinating TED-related news items. Here, some highlights: The TV show Jeopardy turns 30 this week. And we think that’s all the excuse you need to watch Ken Jenning’s amazing TED Talk, “Watson, Jeopardy and the obsolete know-it-all.” Thandie Newton (watch her TED Talk) has launched a […]
What is the city of the future? What will it look like? How will it come to be? This weekend, from Taipei to Melbourne to Mexico City, over 100 local organizers will offer their answers at TEDx events in honor of TEDCity2.0, a day-long TED event celebrating urban innovation. TED challenged organizers to remix the official TEDCity2.0 posters, […]
In today’s talk, Lyne talks cybercrime, revealing some of the new methods that hackers and malicious code writers are using to grab our data. And he shows how we accidentally share that data — without even realizing it. For example, did you know that most smartphones embed GPS data in the photos we take? He […]
From Bob Woodward and Charles Bernstein to Upton Sinclair and Nellie Bly, investigative journalists have shaped the course of history by uncovering troubling truths of their times. These watchdogs work to keep governments and companies honest, sometimes putting their own safety at risk. At a time where newspapers face a rocky future, it’s good to […]
Snakes slither along the ground, right? Well, not always. In this talk from TEDxVirginiaTech, snake expert Jake Socha introduces us to five species of snakes with the ability to fly — no plane or Samuel L. Jackson needed. It’s a fascinating look at how these creatures create lift, even though they are essentially cylinders, and […]
Negin Farsad’s new documentary, The Muslims Are Coming!, churns hilarity out of a not-so-funny subject: Islamophobia. The film follows Farsad, a TED Fellow, and a group fellow Muslim-American comedians (Dean Obeidallah, Aron Kader, Preacher Moss, Kareem Omary, Maysoon Zayid and Omar Elba) as they tour the United States and hold comedic interventions to show conservatives, […]
Take a trip back to the future with this week’s TED Radio Hour, as six TED speakers share their prophecies for what lies ahead. From curing cancer to self-driving cars, these TEDsters offer exciting visions for the future, but not without cautionary warnings. The episode starts with a walk down memory lane with Nicholas Negroponte, […]
As a physician and epidemiologist, Gary Slutkin didn’t think he had much to contribute to the conversation about gun violence in America. But then he began to realize something — that outbreaks of violence follow the same patterns as outbreaks of tuberculosis, cholera and AIDS, all of which he’d worked on reversing during a decade in […]
In 2006, Jake Barton of the interactive media design firm Local Projects received a challenge unlike any other: to create the installations for the 9/11 Memorial Museum, which will open in 2014, with Thinc Design. September 11 is not a historical event made safe and sterile by the passage of decades and centuries. Today is just […]