Unusual clocks and the TED2014 talent search event, TED@NYC

Designer Max Schmidt’s Breathing Clock is a fascinating object. It doesn’t have hands — rather it inflates and deflates to show the progression of time. Schmidt tells PSFK that it’s an homage to the idea that time is relative.

This invention reminds us of Scott Thrift, who spoke at last year’s TED@NYC about his seasonal clock. “I feel like everybody in this room has had that sensation that [you] don’t have enough time, that you’re running out of time or you just feel like you can’t live in the moment. If we measure a moment by a second, how can we possibly?” he asked, before introducing his idea, an annual clock that marks seasons with morphing colors. “Living it with has given me a different perception of a year.”

Thrift presented this clock at TED@NYC, a talent search event for TED2013: The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered. (Also at the audition: Tania Luna: How a penny made me feel like a millionaire Tania Luna, whose talk ran on TED.com last Friday.) We tell you this because TED@NYC is coming up again on Tuesday, October 8 — and it’s your chance to be considered for TED2014: The Next Chapter. If you’d like to be a part of our 30^th anniversary conference in Vancouver, apply to give an audition talk at TED@NYC. Anyone is welcome to submit an idea for a talk, by submitting a one-minute video.

Find out more about how to apply to speak at TED@NYC »

Cesar Kuriyama: One second every day Cesara Kuriyama is another speaker who took the stage at TED@NYC, back in 2011, to share his idea for One Second a Day — an app which also marks the passage of time in an unconventional way. He went on to speak at TED2012: Full Spectrum. He wrote recently on his blog about the decision to speak at TED@NYC and how it sent him in a new direction.

“Two years ago, weeks after quitting my advertising job in pursuit of a more meaningful life, TED posted on [Facebook] that they were going to hold their first ever auditions. I immediately thought, ‘If only I had an idea worth spreading,’” he writes. “It wasn’t until a week later while I was recording my second of the day, that I thought, ‘Hmm, what about this?’ … Is there something on your mind that you wish you could communicate to the world? A 1-minute video could change your life.”