TED Talks
Edward Burtynsky: Photographing the landscape of oil
In stunning large-format photographs, Edward Burtynsky follows the path of oil through modern society, from wellhead to pipeline to car engine -- and then beyond to the projected peak-oil endgame.
TED Talks
David Bismark: E-voting without fraud
David Bismark demos a new system for voting that contains a simple, verifiable way to prevent fraud and miscounting -- while keeping each person's vote secret.
TED Talks
Miwa Matreyek: Glorious visions in animation and performance
Using animation, projections and her own moving shadow, Miwa Matreyek performs a gorgeous, meditative piece about inner and outer discovery. Take a quiet 10 minutes and dive in. With music from Anna Oxygen, Mirah, Caroline Lufkin and...
TED Talks
Yves Rossy: Fly with the Jetman
Strapped to a jet-powered wing, Yves Rossy is the Jetman -- flying free, his body as the rudder, above the Swiss Alps and the Grand Canyon. After a powerful short film shows how it works, Rossy takes the TEDGlobal stage to share the...
TED Talks
Sandra Fisher-Martins: The right to understand
Medical, legal, and financial documents should be easy to read, but too often they aren't. With spot-on (and funny) examples, Sandra Fisher Martins shows how overly complex language separates us from the information we need -- and three...
TED Talks
Eythor Bender: Human exoskeletons -- for war and healing
Eythor Bender of Berkeley Bionics brings onstage two amazing exoskeletons, HULC and eLEGS -- robotic add-ons that could one day allow a human to carry 200 pounds without tiring, or allow a wheelchair user to stand and walk. It's a...
TED Talks
Iain Hutchison: Saving faces: A facial surgeon's craft
Maxillofacial surgeon Iain Hutchison works with people whose faces have been severely disfigured. By pushing to improve surgical techniques, he helps to improve their lives; and by commissioning their portraits, he celebrates their...
TED Talks
TED: Adventures of an interplanetary architect | Xavier De Kestelier
How will we live elsewhere in the galaxy? On earth, natural resources for creating structures are abundant, but sending these materials up with us to the Moon or Mars is clunky and cost-prohibitive. enter architect Xavier De Kestelier,...
TED Talks
TED: How I'm using LEGO to teach Arabic | Ghada Wali
After a visit to a European library in search of Arabic and Middle Eastern texts turned up only titles about fear, terrorism and destruction, Ghada Wali resolved to represent her culture in a fun, accessible way. The result: a colorful,...
TED Talks
TED: What happens when a city runs out of room for its dead | Alison Killing
If you want to go out and start your own cemetery in the uK, says Alison Killing, "you kind of can." She thinks a lot about where we die and are buried -- and in this talk, the architect and TED Fellow offers an eye-opening economic and...
TED Talks
Jonathan Harris: The Web's secret stories
Jonathan Harris wants to make sense of the emotional world of the Web. With deep compassion for the human condition, his projects troll the Internet to find out what we're all feeling and looking for.
TED Talks
Sergey Brin + Larry Page: The genesis of Google
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin offer a peek inside the Google machine, sharing tidbits about international search patterns, the philanthropic Google Foundation, and the company's dedication to innovation and employee...
TED Talks
Rives: A story of mixed emoticons
Rives tells a typographical fairy tale that's short and bittersweet ;)
TED Talks
Laurie Santos: A monkey economy as irrational as ours
Laurie Santos looks for the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primate relatives make decisions. A clever series of experiments in "monkeynomics" shows that some of the silly choices we make, monkeys make too.
TED Talks
Maya Beiser: A cello with many voices
Cellist Maya Beiser plays a gorgeous eight-part modern etude with seven copies of herself, and segues into a meditative music/video hybrid -- using tech to create endless possibilities for transformative sound. Music is Steve Reich's...
TED Talks
TED: How kids can help design cities | Mara Mintzer
Adults tend to think of kids as "future citizens" -- their ideas and opinions will matter someday, just not today. But kids make up a quarter of the population, so shouldn't they have a say in what the world they'll inherit will look...
TED Talks
TED: How do you build a sacred space? | Siamak Hariri
To design the Baha' Temple of South America, architect Siamak Hariri focused on illumination -- from the temple's form, which captures the movement of the sun throughout the day, to the iridescent, luminous stone and glass used to...
TED Talks
Moshe Safdie: Building uniqueness
Looking back over his long career, architect Moshe Safdie delves into four of his design projects and explains how he labored to make each one truly unique for its site and its users.
TED Talks
Eva Zeisel: The playful search for beauty
The ceramics designer Eva Zeisel looks back on a 75-year career. What keeps her work as fresh today (her latest line debuted in 2008) as in 1926? Her sense of play and beauty, and her drive for adventure. Listen for stories from a rich,...
TED Talks
Golan Levin: Art that looks back at you
Golan Levin, an artist and engineer, uses modern tools -- robotics, new software, cognitive research -- to make artworks that surprise and delight. Watch as sounds become shapes, bodies create paintings, and a curious eye looks back at...
TED Talks
Graham Hill: Less stuff, more happiness
Writer and designer Graham Hill asks: Can having less stuff, in less room, lead to more happiness? He makes the case for taking up less space, and lays out three rules for editing your life.
TED Talks
TED: How architecture can create dignity for all | John Cary
If architect and writer John Cary has his way, women will never need to stand in pointlessly long bathroom lines again. Lines like these are representative of a more serious issue, Cary says: the lack of diversity in design that leads to...
TED Talks
TED: How we can find ourselves in data | Giorgia Lupi
Giorgia Lupi uses data to tell human stories, adding nuance to numbers. In this charming talk, she shares how we can bring personality to data, visualizing even the mundane details of our daily lives and transforming the abstract and...
TED Talks
TED: Juggle and jest | Raspyni Brothers
Illustrious jugglers the Raspyni Brothers show off their uncanny balance, agility, coordination and willingness to sacrifice (others). Now, if you'll just stand completely still...