Elizabeth Loftus begins her talk at TEDGlobal 2013 with the tragic story of Steve Titus, who was arrested in 1980 because he sort of matched the physical description of, and drove a similar car to, a man who had raped a woman in his area. Looking at a photo lineup, the victim told police that […]
Neuroscientist Russell Foster opens a session of TEDGlobal all about … us, asking the question: Why do we sleep? Thirty-six percent of our lives are spent asleep, which means, if you live to 90, you’ll have slept for 32 years. But we don’t appreciate sleep enough, says Foster. He quotes Thomas Edison — “Sleep is […]
Sugata Mitra’s TED Prize story may soon be coming to a theater near you. Today during the TEDGlobal 2013 session “Exquisite, Enigmatic Us,” curator Chris Anderson named British director Jerry Rothwell as the winner of the first annual Sundance Institute | TED Prize Filmmaker Award. Rothwell earned a $125,000 grant to follow Sugata Mitra over the next 18 months as he builds […]
A lovely meditation on we exquisite, enigmantic people serves to open Session 3 of TEDGlobal. Olivia Bolles, better known as Olivia Bee, is a 20-year-old American photographer from Portland, Oregon. At 14, her work was featured in an advertising campaign for Converse. Her work has since been used in campaigns for Nike, Hermes and Fiat. […]
In the wilds of planet Earth, there exists a species so creative that it not only uses tools but is constantly rewriting the rules of what a tool can be, so cooperative that they build wildly complex systems to support each other and so consternating that its inconsistent behavior would make even the most seasoned […]
Greg Asner closes Session 2 of TEDGlobal 2013, “Those Flying Things,” with a very different vision of the Earth. We spend a lot of time, money and resources conserving nature, yet, as Asner points out, we know absurdly little about it. Which is why, in an effort to advance our knowledge about biodiversity, he founded […]
On a tablet, Blaise Agüera y Arcas takes us on a walk through Edinburgh Castle, less than a mile from the TEDGlobal 2013 theater. With a swipe of his finger, we fly through the 15th-century castle — people and objects dissolving as we go — as if we were in a scene from a movie orchestrated by […]
You never would have guessed musical alchemist Elizaveta was fighting strep throat only days before her performance. In Session 2 of TEDGlobal, “Those Flying Things,” she steps out onto a darkened stage in an ethereal white dress and a magnificent lace crown and launches into a long, beautiful and flawless soprano note. Trained in opera performance at […]
Technology thriller author, most recently of the book Kill Decision, Daniel Suarez has been thinking about drones for some time. But as he says, as he stands onstage at TEDGlobal 2013, he’s not here to talk fiction. “I’m here to talk about very real autonomous combat drones,” he says, adding that he doesn’t mean remotely piloted […]
If you’re here from MetaFilter, hi! We’re planning to post this talk in November. –eds Andreas Raptopoulos wants to serve the 1 billion people on Earth with no access to all-season roads — the one-seventh of the world’s population that is too often cut off from critical medicines, supplies and goods. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, […]
At TEDGlobal 2013 environmental systems researcher Lian Pin Koh presents a new and unexpectedly benign use for drones: nature conservation. Nepal has natural landscapes that are beautiful — and in danger. But wildlife conservation is costly, and time- and labor-consuming. Behold: Conservation drones, a new tool being used in Nepal to combat wildlife crime. These […]
“Athletic” is a term we use to describe human beings. But could it also be used to describe a machine? In a demo recorded yesterday in his robot lab at TEDGlobal 2013, systems engineer Raffaello D’Andrea shows us that the answer is yes. He demonstrates with quadcopters, mechanically simple flying robots with four propellers. Their […]
These sprightly opening titles for Session 2 are directed by Sebastien Roux / Superdeux, with collaborators Friends of Mine and Junior Market. Why did they choose 3D robotic animation to open this session on the hopes and fears surrounding drones? As the makers explain, “Flying machines will soon take over the world. Until then, let’s […]
When it comes to drones, a lot of ideas float in the ether. Technologists see potential for flying machines to help us in all sorts of unexpected ways, governments take measures that seem hard and fixed, and meanwhile the media oversimplifies and dramatizes the issue. The conversation on drones is ever changing — especially with […]
Anne-Marie Slaughter, public policy expert and author of the widely read 2012 article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” closes the first session of TEDGlobal with a talk about how she became a woman she never imagined. In 2010, Slaughter, says, “I had the chance to be considered for promotion from my job as […]
Two years ago, as she put her 5-year-old son Aboody to bed, Manal Al-Sharif faced an unexpected question from him: “Mommy, are we bad people?” Earlier in the day, she had noticed bruises on his face. He didn’t want to tell her why. Now, in the evening, he confessed that boys at school had hit him […]