TED Blog

Ze Frank: "Santa ain't fat"

TEDsters have a soft spot in their hearts for Ze Frank, the uncategorizable philosopher comic, who made his name with a viral video before becoming a TED regular. Always a maker of merry mischief, Ze offers an annual holiday gift to faithful fans. This year: A dance-worthy hip-hop track called Santa Ain't Fat. But don't overlook the ghosts of Christmas past. You can still create a carol (with click-and-drag elves), dial the direct line to Santa's Elves, or kick it old school with Santa Must Have Been Drinking, the first wholesome holiday hit from Ze Frank's one-man orchestra.

Meanwhile in Africa...

Here's a powerful use of photographs by Kristen Ashburn (TED2003) using a beautiful Peter Gabriel (TED2006) song, performed here by Alicia Keys and Bono (TED2005). Don't open if you don't want to be moved...

Don't Put The Octopus In With Your Sharks

The thing I find so compelling about aquariums is that they are both scientifically fascinating and visually stunning.  Which is why the Aquarium Party is always among the many highlights of the TED experience for me.  Last year's attendees of the Aquarium Party had the added pleasure of observing the worlds only Great White Shark in captivity.  It was on display in the Monterey Bay Aquarium for 198 days before it was released back into the ocean.  While on display, the Great White attacked two Soupfin Sharks, both of which died from their bite wounds.  A related incident occurred at the Seattle Aquarium when an octopus was placed in the same tank with a number of sharks -- only this one was caught on video tape.  If you thought the majestic Great White was a thing to behold, wait until you see this video.

Inspired Holiday Gifts, Part 2

Technology-based gifts — while always welcome — can be a bit, well, boring. Here: some indulgent and unexpected choices.

For someone with a big project ... and a really big desk: The 30-inch Apple Cinema Display monitor. More than 4 million pixels of gorgeous flat-screen glory. Utterly indulgent, but worth every penny. $2499 at Apple.com

For someone with a sweet tooth ... and serious style: The gorgeous Dean & Deluca Package Cake, “wrapped” in a European fondant. For extra points, include Phillipe Starck’s Trowel Cake Server, to help them really dig in. Cake: $80 from Dean and Deluca (search for item #850033). Cake server: $108 from the MOMA Design Store

For someone who color-coordinates: Tivoli Portable Audio Laboratory (PAL). Big, beautiful sound from a pretty little package. Plug an iPod or CD player into this 6-inch-high, weather-resistant radio, known for fantastic reception as well as its fashion colors. $149 at Tivoliaudio.com

For someone who loves entertainment ... and being first on the block: Sony LocationFree TV. Watch your Tivo'd programs, local TV, or your DVD collection from anywhere in the world. The base station in your home streams the video over a broadband connection; the LocationFree TV screen — or your PlayStation Portable handheld! — receives it at the other end. All we can say is: Wow. TEDster Dan Dubno's review (in his holiday gift guide), will get them started. $1099 w/7-inch TV at SonyStyle

For someone who's kept their sense of humor: A mug inscribed with an 'erasable' Bill of Rights. Fill it with coffee, and the text disappears from the heat-sensitive ceramic. So long, civil liberties. Hello, seasonal satire! $12 from UncommonGoods.com

More ideas in Inspired Holiday Gifts, Part 1

Congratulations, Bono

Time magazine gives the inaugural TED Prize Winner their big annual award. (Well, he has to share it with a Mr and Mrs Gates).

And if you missed the talk Bono gave at TED last year, there's a transcript here, and links to the video stream here. Well worth hearing.

The Accidental Artist: A TV ad

A German TV commercial invokes the age-old question: It's entertaining ... but is it art?

Computer-generated films come of age

Tis the season to celebrate CG animation, it seems. A 20-year retrospective of Pixar opens today at MOMA (the most extensive exhibit they've mounted on animation) and The Economist surveys the state of the art in this week's Technology Quarterly.

We've heard a lot about computer-generated entertainment at TEDs past — from Jeffrey Katzenberg previewing DreamWorks films to Torsten Reil demoing the inner workings of NaturalMotion software. Interesting, then, to see how quickly the genre's matured. The Economist piece delivers some interesting nuggets: For example, the computing power needed to impart realistic motion on everything from Shrek to the grass he walks on is breath-taking, often requiring computer centers (or "render farms") to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a year and a half or more.

MOMA will screen all of Pixar's films this month, including Oscar-winner Geri's Game (pictured) and the little-known Adventures of André & Wally B.. Not in New York? There's always iTunes: Pixar shorts are $1.99 each.

The Proper Way To Fold A Shirt

Those of you who are already fanatical Jill Sobule groupies have likely signed up to be a member of her Secret Society Mystery Cult (aka, Jill's mailing list).  And if you are a Cult member then you have already seen this fantastic video of the proper way to fold a shirt (Jill learned of this video from a fan, after requesting packing and folding tips in an earlier newsletter). The video reminded me of the equally compelling presentation by Terry Moore at TED2005 on the proper way to tie your shoes. Now if someone could just show me the proper way to wrap a holiday present — that's a skill I'm desperately in need of at the moment.

TrendWatch: Pre-fab houses

2005 was perhaps the break-out year for the pre-fab home. The year's dozen or so inspired offerings drew widespread coverage in the design press. And Dwell Magazine went as far as launching their own line of ready-to-build houses. The appeal of the Dwell Homes — and other pre-fabs — is that they deliver reasonably cost-conscious options for style-seeking nesters. For a quick, satisfying look at the state-of-the-art, this BusinessWeek slide show offers a sampler, including Alchemy Architects' weeHouse (pictured), Charlie Lazor's FlatPak, and Ikea's BoKlok. A few notables that BW skipped: Adam Kalkin's Push Button house, which automatically unpacks itself, and Werner Aisslinger's Loftcube, designed to perch on an urban rooftop.

MemeWatch: Evil Search Engines

Everyone loves to love Google. With its uncluttered interface, useful services and utterly likeable founders (TEDsters both), what's not to like? But what if the friendly search engine revealed a sinister under-belly? What if it reneged on its corporate mantra, "Don't Be Evil." Such ponderings are fueling one of the most entertaining memes in the blogosphere: The Evil Search Engine Scenario. TEDGlobal producer Bruno Giussani and The Search author John Battelle have been swapping Hollywood-worthy stories of a world in which Google switches sides ....

The iPod of Toilets

The Swiss newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung (NZZ) is among the world's best, and perhaps the least prone to hyperbole. Yet this Sunday's edition raved about British designer Ross Lovegrove (TED2005) and his latest project, "Liquid Space," a line of bathroom furniture and fixtures for Istanbul-based VitrA. Lovegrove fascinated us last February in Monterey, with his organic forms and high-tech materials; this new line fits right in. NZZ described Lovegrove's commode as "The iPod of toilets: so elegant, so chic, so smooth that it could easily make the list of must-have lifestyle products. Could it be a lounge toilet?" (Tip and German translation from Bruno Giussani)

TED2006 Speaker Line-up Unveiled

This year's program, just posted, has already generated a blizzard of excited emails to TED HQ. Perhaps because it includes...
- a former US vice-president
- a rock music icon
- the world's greatest aircraft engineer
- a pastor whose book has sold more than 20m copies
- an 11-year-old violinist
- a Nobel laureate
- America's leading motivational speaker
- and 50 more scientists, architects, musicians, creatives, techies, comedians, pundits, artists, business leaders, activists, geniuses and mavericks
...and perhaps also because our web partners Macromedia have figured out a wonderful way to show-off this remarkable group of people. Check it out.

TED2006 "The Future We Will Create" is February 22-25, 2006. Looks like we will sell out earlier than any prior year, but there are still some passes available.

Visualizing global trends

Humans have a hard time picturing certain things: long-term consequences, very large numbers, global trends ... For better or worse, our brains evolved to understand the immediate, "middle-sized" world that confronts us daily. We're grateful then, to the designers and thinkers who make abstract concepts accessible. Case in point: Gapminder, a Stockholm-based non-profit. Their extraordinary interactive graphs help you visualize complex global trends — like the distribution of poverty, in different regions of the world, over time. The raw statistics would bore you to tears; the web graphs — dynamic, colorful and clear — are utterly compelling. They're worth a look — not only for their particular content — but for the possibilities presented by this marriage of technology, information and design. (Link via kottke. Thanks!)

Podcast: A real word, after all

No longer just a buzzword, "podcast" has now officially become a word. And not just any word. The New Oxford American Dictionary has declared it Word of the Year. "Podcast was considered for inclusion last year," Editor-in-Chief Erin McKean told the BBC. "But we found that not enough people were using it, or were even familiar with the concept. This year it's a completely different story."

Steve Levitt, Freakonomics, abortion and crime

TED speaker Steve Levitt, author of the best-selling Freakonomics, faced new accusations this past week that he'd made critical mistakes in his controversial claim that the main reason crime rates fell in the 90's was because of the legalization of abortion in the 70's. At his blog, he's just posted a vigorous defence. The debate may be too technical for us mere lay-people, but it's clear he's not backing down.

In Praise of Industrial Design

A well-produced package on Forbes.com celebrates the most influential industrial designers working today. Many familiar faces in this slideshow, including spacecraft engineer (and X-Prize winner) Burt Rutan, who will speak at TED2006; eco-architect William McDonough; IDEO founder David Kelley; and Martin Fisher (TED2002), who founded KickStart International, best known for the "Super-MoneyMaker Pump," providing African farmers with both needed technology and the foundation for new businesses. (Since 1999, 400,000 pumps have been sold and 38,000 African businesses launched, generating $38M annually.)

The Narnia Wars

Gazillions of words have written this past month about one of my boyhood heroes C S Lewis, in the run-up to the release of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.  (Trailer here.) Allegedly he was sexist, racist, sado-masochistic and, according to another favorite author of mine Philip Pullman, responsible for one of the most vile moments in children's literature. Here's a compelling piece in Lewis's defence. And alipsmacking review of the movie...

Inspired Holiday Gifts, Part 1

Our gift to you this holiday season: A collection of inspired presents, blending technology, entertainment and design.

For the accident-prone bon vivant: Stemless wine glasses by Maximillian Riedel (2004). Beautifully formed goblets, without the fragile stems. They're breakable, sure. But you have to try harder. (Available for Cabernet/Merlot, Chardonnay and Riesling/Sauvignon Blanc) $26/set of two at the MOMA Design Store.

For the hopelessly overcommitted co-worker: The classic New Yorker cartoon ("How about never—is never good for you?"). $ 150 framed at The Cartoon Bank.

For the reluctant globe-trotter: Bose QuietComfort noise-cancelling headphones. My brother, the pilot, swears by these. They not only deliver gorgeous sound; the acoustic noise-canceling technology eliminates the white noise that causes fatigue on long flights. And the new design folds flat, packs easily. Definitely worth the investment for frequent fliers. $299 at Bose.com.

For the unrepentant punster: Freudian slippers. Hee. $24 at Uncommon Goods.

For the not-so-green thumb: Orchids by the month. The delicate orchid is notoriously difficult to keep alive. Obvious solution: keep sending them more. A new miniature orchid — in a lovely porcelain pot — will arrive each month. Just after they killed the last one. $125/3 months at RedEnvelope.

On Global Warming: Bjorn Lomborg begs to differ

With climate change very much in the news, Bjorn Lomborg too has stepped back in the spotlight. Lomborg first courted controversy with his 2001 book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. And his provocative new essay, The Relative Unimportance of Global Warming, appears today in the Phillipine Daily Inquirer -- after running Friday in the Taipei Times and Korea Herald.

Lomborg doesn't dispute the science of global warming, but he believes Kyoto-style attempts to cut carbon-dioxide emissions are misguided, and that funds are best invested elsewhere: both in solvable problems (HIV/AIDS, hunger, Malaria) and in research toward alternative energy. As he told us at TED2005, we must prioritize the world's problems, if we're going to solve them. And we should prioritize based on the effectiveness of the proposed solution. The Kyoto Protocol is inefficient and expensive, he says (and the Copenhagen Consensus -- a group of top economists, including 4 Nobel laureates -- backs him up).

You can definitely argue with the conclusions, but don't dismiss this provocateur as reactionary or ill-informed. Those who attended TED2005 have learned: The articulate, left-leaning, vegetarian Dane is not so easily categorized.

Zen and the Art of PowerPoint

As TED veterans know, it's not uncommon for first-time speakers to completely overhaul their presentations in Monterey, after realizing their standard talk won't do. And it's true: The bar is set intentionally high at TED. It's not enough to have a great idea. You have to engage the audience, craft a meaningful story and pace yourself for the 18-minute slot. It doesn't hurt to know your way around PowerPoint either.

Mastering all these elements is a skill unto itself, and Garr Reynolds has some of the best advice I've seen for delivering great presentations. His deceptively simple tips ("Limit bullet points and text;" "Move away from the podium") would qualitatively improve 90% of the talks I see (and, believe me, I see a lot of talks). And his blog, Presentation Zen, provides regular pointers for professional presenters. Though he delves into the nitty-gritty of slide design and technology, he never loses sight of the big picture. His No. 1 tip on delivery? "Show your passion." We couldn't agree more.

(Hat tipped gratefully to metacool for the link.)

Best blog post linking to the TEDBlog

After reading Don Norman's response to 10 Reasons to Hate Your iPod, Matt May declared it the "Best blog comment disclaimer ever."

Tuva or Bust

While studying computer music in the late 1980s, one of my classmates brought a tape into CCRMA, Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Accoustics.  The tape had a snippet of music with a sound we had never heard before -- a very pure flute like instrument played atop a deep and raspy drone.  We spent a fair bit of time debating what the instruments were, even analyzing the sounds in our lab, before it was revealed to us that there was only one instrument, not two, and that the instrument in question was the human voice.  The tape we heard sounded something like this.  This encounter was the first time I heard throatsinging, a singing technique unique to the region in outer Mongolia called Tuva.  For literally years in college I worked at throatsinging to very little success.  But the very nature of this unique sound (a musical system based upon the individual components of the sound itself rather than a melody per se) and the isolated culture that created it has fascinated me for going on two decades.

Given my fascination with Tuvan throatsinging, it is more than a little surprising that it has taken me this long to get around to watching Genghis Blues, but better late than never.  Genghis Blues is a wonderful documentary that chronicles the journey of blind blues singer Paul Pena to Tuva to compete in the national throatsinging competition.  The film is a glimps into a fascinating culture and a thrilling musical tradition.  While I can probably do without the "delicacy" of goat blood sausage, Genghis Blues left me -- life Richard Feynman before me -- dreaming of a trip to this remote part of the world.  Genghis Blues is well worth a watch and If you ever get a chance to hear authentic throatsingers in concerts, I highly recommend it.  -- David Hornik

Jill Sobule holiday tour

Jill Sobule, minstrel/muse of TEDs past, just kicked off her holiday tour, performing tonight in Ann Arbor, MI with Cyndi Lauper and Sandra Bernhard (!)The trio will travel on to Cleveland, Toronto, D.C., and other eastern cities – no doubt amusing and delighting as they go.

Telemarketing: the fight-back

Here is a beautiful, beautiful thing.  A piece of technology ("TeleCrapper") that allows you to fake a conversation with a telemarketer... without ever answering the phone.  You record some random conversation snippets, and the software plays them back to the marketer every time there's a silence on the line.

So you have the pleasure of stealing back a bit of the time that's been stolen from you over the years... AND - this is the genius bit - the system records the conversations so that you can play them later to your friends for mirth.

Come here, scroll down the page and listen to examples 3, 4 and 12b. Suddenly the world will seem a happier place.

Rob Reid, THANK YOU, for forwarding.

HabitatJam ...brave!

The world seems to bursting right now with big ideas.  Lots of people have twigged that in an interconnected world, any individual can make a difference. So why not try to set up something online to facilitate this. Of course, the large majority of these efforts will fail to get to critical mass... but you have to applaud people for trying. 

Check out this attempt at a global conversation about cities.  One day, an effort that starts like this could end up spawning a genuinely global community that becomes self-sustaining. This probably ain't it, but never say never.....

Acoustic Video Game Music

Each year I make a pilgrimage to the E3 conference.  E3 is the largest annual conference for the "interactive entertainment industry" -- also known as the video game industry.  The conference is one of the most tumultuous and cacophonous gatherings you could care to experience (I learned my lesson after the first year and now take Advil before even entering the convention center).  Video game manufacturers and publishers set up massive towering video screens buttressed by mind-numbingly loud speaker towers.  E3 is the ultimate digital experience.  Yet the most compelling thing I saw at E3 this year was 100% analog -- Martin Leung, the "Video Game Pianist."  Martin was at E3 playing video game themes on an upright piano and he had a bigger crowd than many of the sexy new video game titles themselves.  You can get a taste of Martin's E3 performance here.  And Martin's not the only one who's musical sensibilities have been influenced by the video game culture.  Check out this video of electric bass player Jean Baudin playing his version of the Super Mario Brothers theme on a 9 string electric bass.  -- David Hornik

An evening with Jared Diamond (in LA)

LA TEDsters, take note: Guns, Germs and Steel author Jared Diamond (TED2003) will headline an intriguing evening at the Natural History Museum this Friday. He's moderating a provocative roundtable, exploring energy choices, climate change and ecological survival — issues raised in his book Collapse, and the exhibit it inspired. The unusual event incorporates video DJs, drumming, reggae and dancing in the Mammals Hall. (Seriously.) We expect a full report.