TED Blog

A TEDster tragedy

Sachi Gahan was due to come to TED2006 last week. Tragically her husband Drew Lippolt (pictured here) was killed in a motorcycle accident shortly before TED.

She has written movingly about her husband at www.goodbyedrew.com and at her blog (a painful real-life example of the power of personal blogging that Mena Trott spoke about last week).  Our thoughts go out to you, Sachi.

On behalf of the TED community, I have authorized a donation of $10k from this year's TED profits to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Drew's name.

Pictures from TED2006

Tony Robbins, Julia Sweeney, Rick Warren, Al Gore and the Main Hall audience. Just a few of the images of an incredible week in Monterey. Many more here.

...and some of the early comments from attendees:
"My brain hurts"
"I loved TED last year, but I am now officially addicted. That was amazing."
"I am at once exhausted and regenerated"
"The best TED ever. No question."
"One of the best things -- not just conferences -- I've ever attended. A grandslam."
"Powerful and incredible in every way"
"Life-changing"
"Do I have to go the office tomorrow?"

For blog and media coverage, scroll down the RH column of this page.

TED Gift Bag: Totally sustainable, quite cool

I thought I'd follow David Hornik's post about the gift bag loot, with a note on the bag itself ... We're proud to say that this year's gift bag is the first totally sustainable messenger bag produced by Timbuk2. Its genesis is a great TED story ...

Inspired by eco-architect William McDonough's talk at TED2005 (and encouraged by TEDster Marcus Colombano, of Avantgarde) Timbuk2 CEO Mark Dwight resolved to create a bag that complies with McDonough's philosophy of cradle-to-cradle design. The sleek, chic bag is not only designed from sustainable materials, it's also recyclable: When you tire of it, you can send it off to be turned into carpet. Writes McDonough: "Timbuk2 is giving you ... a messenger's bag that is a messenger. It is not perfect, yet; just a strong start in the race to the destination, which is a pure sustaining design."

The limited-edition TED bag was produced for conference attendees only, but will be made available to the public (sans TED logo) later this year. More information on the Timbuk2 site ...

The TED Gift Bag

After an incredible four days at TED, I drove home to my family in the Bay Area.  My kids were happy to see me, but they were far more interested in ransacking my TED gift bag.  As veterans of my many conference trips over the years, the kids are acutely aware that the TED gift bag holds the most promise for them of any with which I return.  And this year they were not disappointed.

There was much wrestling over the Target Dog but ultimately my 6 year old daughter was victorious.  The TED Dog has not left her side since (as is evidenced by the picture below that I took today while on my way to get the crew haircuts).  After losing the dog wrestling match, my 4 year old begrudgingly settled for some chocolate, the luminescent Inventibles material (his favorite -- particularly in flashing mode), and a couple of Ethel tattoos, which he promptly put on his arms (as you can see in the picture above).  Despite being a big fan of the temporary tattoo, my 8 year old passed on the Ethel tattoos when he learned that they were 1) in the form of a heart with the name Ethel in the middle and 2) not for a rock band, but rather for a string quartet (he was unmoved when I assured him that Ethel were, in fact, the rock band of the string quartet world).  He did, however, get very excited when he saw a PSP game, believing that a PSP was likely to follow.  In the "hope springs eternal" category, he took the PSP game despite a lack of PSP and my assurance that, sadly, I would not buy him one simply because he was the proud owner of a most excellent PSP title.  Lastly (believe me, four kids is plenty), my 10 year old took the design book and music theory book and tried to steal the Ethel CD (that wrestling match I won) but settled for 6 months of Rhapsody instead.

Like little pack rats, my kids receded to their respective rooms to enjoy their booty.  I gathered the rejected pieces of the TED bag to take upstairs, relieved that no one had claimed any of the paper gift certificates -- I, and I alone, would get the free DVD, free photo book, discounted Treo 700, etc.  But, above all else, I was relieved that none of them -- including my wife -- had chosen the thousand dollars off a brand new Lexus.  I better keep that one under wraps.

Day four: The day in quotes

"We are seeding the area with 'green-collar' jobs, people who have both an economic interest and a personal stake in their environment"— Majora Carter on her organization's efforts to 'green' the South Bronx

“If you're not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original” – Ken Robinson

"Creativity is now as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status". — Ken Robinson

"He was in someone's English class wasn't he? ... How annoying would that be?" —Ken Robinson imagining the challenge of educating William Shakespeare

"You see that the artist had no idea how to use colors, or maybe he was in a hurry" —Ursus Wehrli on “tidying up” Paul Klee’s 1930 colored chalkboard “Farbtafel”

"Live a "carbon neutral" life, it's easier than you think: reduce, and then offset the rest" – Al Gore

"On behalf of the elephants, thank you for listening" — Photographer Gregory Colbert

Day Three: The Day in quotes

"If you don't want to practice, you can hide it." —11-year-old violinist Serena Huang, on why she chose the violin over the piano.

"Houston, we have a problem. We're entering the second generation of no progress." — Spacecraft designer Burt Rutan, on the stalled space program.

"We are now returning to an ancient form of marriage: one based on equality and symmetry... If there were ever a time in human history when we had the opportunity to make good marriages, it's now." — Anthropologist Helen Fisher

"It's extremely important to design from within the community." —MIT inventor Amy Smith, explaining her philosophy on developing tools for third world countries

"If you really want to know what society is going to be like in 20 years, don't ask a technologists like me: ask kindergarten teachers. They are the ones that know what society is going to be like in one generation". —Clifford Stoll

"The battleground is moving from the physical to the ideological."—Warfare expert Jim Crupi

"Of the 6000 languages spoken in the world today, 3000 are not spoken by the children, which means that we are halving our linguistic diversity" – Photographer Phil Borges, on his work documenting endangered cultures

"The invisible force of internal drive, if activated, is the most powerful force in the world" —Tony Robbins

“For decades they worked in a provisional space, which means that they could tear down a wall or work with various formats, so the challenge was to come up with a new building while allowing for continuing this experimentation and flexibility" —Architect Joshua Prince-Ramus, explaining how the "acoustic enclosure" of the new Dallas Performing Arts Centre came to be.

"There is an 'upgrade paradox': If you improve a piece of software enough times, you finally ruin it." — New York Times Technology columnist David Pogue

The State Theater & its Content(s)

Whatever you think about Unleavened Doom, it sure does project to the balconies. Jim Crupi was therefore a good pick to address the full TED audience as we all assembled under one roof for the first time in the Monterey State Theater.   

All told, I found the theater to be a great addition to the TED arsenal. The space is just jaw-dropping, the change of scenery was nice, and it gave a much clearer sense of the full scale of the TED audience than the evening events in which we’re dispersed throughout a vast ballroom. I hope we continue to convene there at future TED’s, and think the Friday evening session is the ideal time for that. A change of pace is welcome by the third day, and it’s a great way to gather the tribe and set the momentum as we move on to the big night at the aquarium.

Certain presenters will also work great in that space. Bigger-named speakers that we'd all hate to miss seeing in person, as well as those with a theatrical bent to their presence are obvious candidates. It sounds like it was more by happenstance than design that the theater came available to us for Session 10. If that’s indeed the case, I think we lucked out in that at least three of presenters were of the sort whose styles are well suited for a plenary session (Crupi, as well as presenter-performers Julia Sweeney and Sirena Huang. How about that Sirena, huh??) .

All of that said, my own vote would be that we keep the vast majority of the conference in our traditional digs over at the conference center. The casual flow between the Google Café, the comfort and amenities of the simulcast lounge, and the intimacy of the main hall all have a lot to do with the spontaneity and informality that are hallmarks of TED.

Of course, it’s easy for me to say this as one who was lucky enough to have a Main Hall pass this year. TED does have an issue in its increasing popularity, and shifting the full event over to the State Theater would let everyone see every session that interests them. What do you think?

 

 

In-depth coverage of TED2006

Outside of the quotes, photos and impressions you find here on the TEDblog, we're fortunate this year to have at least two TEDsters liveblogging the conference in great detail. For extraordinary real-time analysis, take a look at the blogs of Ethan Zuckerman, of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and Bruno Giussani, who produced TEDGLOBAL last summer. Their posts and others are also include in the feed to the right..

Day Two | The day in quotes

"One of the tragic aspects of human-right abuses is that they're too easily forgotten or denied; but it appears that if there are cameras around, they tend to happen less.” —Peter Gabriel [Session write up | Photo]

"If newts can regenerate a lost limb, why can't we?" —Dr. Alan Russell explaining advances in regenerative medicine. [Session write up | Photo]

"This is not a political issue, though it masquerades as one. This is a moral issue. This is an ethical issue. This is a spiritual issue." —Al Gore, addressing the climate change crisis at a pre-conference breakfast

“Happy birthday” —Einstein the parrot, singing for Al Gore. [Session write up | Photo]

"Life will be everywhere. It will be everywhere we look." —Penelope Boston, outlining her theory that life is common throughout the universe, and is most likely to be found underground or in caves. [Session write up | Photo]

"Everyone bets their life on something. I happen to believe that Jesus is who he said he was." —Pastor Rick Warren [Session write up | Photo]

"Religions are natural phenomena that have been domesticated and redesigned and adapted over time." —Philosopher Dan Dennett, making the case for the non-necessity of religion [Session write up | Photo]

"I'm incredibly narcissistic. I'm a blogger." — Mena Trott, discussing the profound importance of personal blogs. [Session write up | Photo]

"3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693
993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348
253421170679821480865132823066470938446095505
822317253594081284811174502841027019385211055
5964462294895493038196" —Nick McKeown reciting (without mistakes) the first 200 digits of Pi (while juggling). [Session write-upPhoto]

"So that means you're Bart, right?" —Chris Anderson to Matt Groening following the revelation that the original Homer was Homer Groening, Matt's father. [Photo]

"I don't know if a film can change the world, but I believe it has the ability to take you across borders, into another world, and maybe that has the ability to transform". —TEDPrize winner and documentary filmmaker Jehane Noujaim

"I'm the luckiest guy in the world: I got to see the last case of smallpox in the world, and recently in India I may have seen the last cases of polio". —TEDPrize winner Larry Brilliant

"I'm fed up with talking about making change: it's time to do it" —TEDPrize winner and Architecture for Humanity founder Cameron Sinclair

Part I ...

One of the more poignant points that Al Gore made in last night’s powerful speech about global warming was that a lot of people move directly from a state of denial about this issue to one of despair.  People in the first state don’t go out and try to change things because they don’t see a problem. People in the second state are often no more inclined to act because they think the situation is hopeless.  The fact that these are the two most stable cognitive states on this issue probably explains why a lot of people do, in fact, remain in denial.  It’s human to avoid pain, and therefore perhaps natural to subconsciously choose a state of denial over the daily trauma of despairing for the future of humanity. 

The main body of the speech musters a great sense of alarm about a formidable enemy (and by the way, I’ll use the present tense in the discussing the speech from now on because Mr. Gore indicated that it’s an on-going project that he’s presenting in as many forums as possible).  To convert that alarm into an energized determination to do something, Mr. Gore needs to be equally persuasive in arguing that the enemy can actually be defeated.  In light of this, perhaps the most important part of the speech is the tantalizing glimpse of hope that he offers at the end.  But does that glimpse create enough momentum to carry his audience through the state of despair and into one of cautious, but inspired optimism? 

In my own case, Gore trampled my few remaining shards of doubt about the immediacy of the issue, and greatly deepened my general state of alarm about it.  However the part of the speech that I found most intriguing – that later section in which he argued that it’s not yet too late to do something about deep environmental shifts that have had no precedent in at least 600,000 years – was all too short, and the general sense that I emerged with was one of dread.

This speech will no doubt evolve as Mr. Gore continues with his campaign to move the public to action. As this unfolds, I hope that the cause-for-hope/call-to-action section expands.  For instance, the recent improvements in the ozone layer that he cited are an electrifying precedent for anyone moving from despair to action.  To me, this brief but bright flash of hope was every bit as motivating as the methodical depiction of our current situation.  Back in the 80’s there was a good deal of despair about the ozone matter, and plenty of rumblings that we shouldn’t bother doing anything, because nothing could be done. But then coordinated, aggressive action turned things around. It could be quite inspiring to learn more about this noble and analagous success in the context of what's happening today.

Similarly, the slide in which he pointed to several different intitiatives which could collectively stablize then reverse the build-up of greenhouse gases passed all too quickly.  The thought that we've conjured up a great mess for ourselves through decades of largely unwitting collective action is plenty agitating.  But people will get really riled up if they believe that we're willfully avoiding a clear, concrete, and achieveable path to recovery.  What are the steps on that path?  What quantitative facts underlie the argument that they can be effective? Are they as attainable as the reversal in the ozone problem turned out to be?  And what self-interested groups are fighting to keep us from taking them?  I have the feeling that Mr. Gore has succinct, quantitative, and highly visual answers to these questions, and hope to be in the room someday when he presents them.

Hmm … maybe that’s what he has planned for his follow-up talk on Saturday…?

 

Day One | The Day in Quotes

"Does history have an arrow? That's a profound question. Because if you think history has an arrow, it changes how you feel about the future." —Chris Anderson, introducing Robert Wright. [Session write up | Photo]

"We are witnessing a collision between our civilization and the earth ... We have no more than 10 years within which we can make a difference; otherwise it's too late. It's a question of political will, but in a democracy political will is a renewable resource." —Al Gore, sounding the alarm on climate change [Session write up | Photos | Past post: CelebrityWatch: Al Gore]

"I used to be a lightbulb. Now I'm a laser." —Nicholas Negroponte, explaining his decision to step down as chairman of the MIT Media Lab and focus on implementing his One Laptop Per Child program. [Session write up | Photo | Past post: $100 (lime green) laptop unveiled]

"You can move much faster if you're healthy first than if you're wealthy first." —Hans Rosling, narrating a time-lapse graph, illustrating the fate of nations' development over the last 40 years. [Session write up | Photo | Past posts: Hans Rosling, the great visualizer, to speak at TED and Visualizing Global Trends]

"Google could really use one of these in their lobby." —Jeff Han, demonstrating his intuitive "interface-free" multi-sensing computer screen [Session write-up | Background on Jeff Han | Photo]

Day One-Related Links

For me, a good gage of how intriguing a day at a conference has been is the number of times it sends me off to the Internet to dig up more information on the subjects it covered.  Day One of TED has definitely set a new high water mark in this regard, so I thought I’d share a few interesting links connected to some of today’s talks. 

First, if you want to see Robert Wright's Op-Ed piece that earned him Ann Coulter’s ire, it’s here.  Wright gets it rolling by arguing that “The Muslim uproar over those Danish cartoons isn't as alien to American culture as we like to think. Once you see this, a benign and quintessentially American response comes into view.  Even many Americans who condemn the cartoon's publication accept the premise that the now-famous Danish newspaper editor set out to demonstrate: in the West we don't generally let interest groups intimidate us into what he called ‘self-censorship.’ What nonsense. Editors at mainstream American media outlets delete lots of words, sentences and images to avoid offending interest groups, especially ethnic and religious ones. It's hard to cite examples since, by definition, they don't appear. But use your imagination.”

Speaking of Op-Ed pieces, Bill Joy mentioned a piece that he and Ray Kurzweil penned for the New York Times about the US Department of Health & Human Services’ decision to publish the genome for the 1918 avian flu virus.  It can be found here (the op-ed piece, not the avian flu genome!).  It’s a well-argued and persuasive condemnation of this galactically stupid move, as well as a call for “a new Manhattan Project to develop specific defenses against new biological viral threats, natural or human made.”

The day’s first standing ovation went to Hans Rosling, and his brilliant statistical visualization work.  For your very own copy of most of the elements that went into this presentation (as well as several other gems), go to the Web site of his whimsically-named organization, Gapminder.

Excitement building in Monterey ...

With just a few hours left till TED2006, the delicious anticipation is building. Truck after truck has unloaded the physical features of TED: dozens of Sony plasma screens, hundreds of plush Steelcase couches and chairs, the makings of the Google cafe, the books for A Clean Well-Lighted Place. The Junipero Serra room has been transformed into the Simulcast Lounge. Fat gift bags are lined up for the taking. Strains of Aida can be heard from the Main Hall. And everyone has that look that says, "I'm ready to be inspired." It's definitely time for TED ...

Inigo Montoya On Broadway

Last night I watched the movie The Princess Bride for the 137th time.  It just never gets old.  While the entire star-studded cast of The Princess Bride (Billy Crystal, Robin Wright, Christopher Guest, Peter Falk, Wallace Shawn, Carol Kane, Fred Savage) is uniformly fantastic, it is hard to imagine a better role for Mandy Patinkin ("My name is Inigo Montoya . . . you killed my father . . . prepare to die!").  And, yet, I recently learned of the ultimate role for Tony Award winning vocal powerhouse Patinkin.  With any luck he will reprise the role of Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride on Broadway.

That's right, word has it that William Goldman, the author of the book The Princess Bride, and Adam Guettel, 2005 Tony Award winner for his music to Light in the Piazza, are teaming up to bring The Princess Bride to Broadway.  Guettel has Broadway in his blood -- he is the grandson of Richard Rodgers (of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame) and the son of Mary Rogers (of Once Upon a Mattress fame).  And Goldman's storytelling credentials are hard to beat -- he penned the screenplays for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All The President's Men, Marathon Man, and, of course, The Princess Bride.  The combination should be fantastic.  I know I'll be heading to New York as soon as The Princess Bride opens on Broadway.

TED: The documentary

Over the last many months, we've been working on ways to bring the magic of TED to a wider audience, beyond the 1000 of us who gather in Monterey each February. We're thrilled then, to tell you that a documentary about TED is now being developed for PBS. The goal is to capture the inspiration and energy of TED, and bring that to life for an at-home audience. It's tricky business, translating TED to film. But we've been continually impressed with the vision and determination of the team we're working with. Producer Steven Latham (The Living Century, The Jim Bellows Story) has plenty of TED cred; among his other intriguing projects, he's producing a NOVA special on alternative energy, with TEDster Evan Schwartz.

The program will be hosted by the charming actress Daphne Zuniga, who everyone remembers from her early films, The Sure Thing and Spaceballs, and who currently stars in the ABC series, "Beautiful People." Zuniga grew up steeped in learning (with a philosophy professor father and a unitarian minister mother), so has been drawn to the idea of TED since she first crossed our path last year.

Steven, Daphne and their A-list production team will be on-site in Monterey next week. Their goal, of course, is to observe without intruding. But they also hope to talk to as many TEDsters as possible. If you have a TED story to tell, go ahead and send a note to Steven ahead of time: He's stevenlathamproductions (at) gmail.com.

TED Book Club: What We Believe But Cannot Prove

The irresistible What We Believe But Cannot Prove sprung out of the annual question asked at edge.org by TEDster John Brockman. The contributors include many TED speakers, including: Martin Rees, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Petranek, Craig Venter, Michael Shermer, Jared Diamond, Freeman Dyson, Daniel Gilbert, Steven Pinker, Dan Dennett, George Dyson, Irene Pepperberg, Kevin Kelly, Jaron Lanier, Kai Krause, Danny Hillis. The list goes on ...

What they write is almost universally thought-provoking, and it's easy just to dip in, dip out. Who could not be intrigued by, for example, John Barrow. "I believe, but cannot prove, that our universe is infinite in size, finite in age, and just one among many...." or Daniel Goleman "I believe, but cannot prove, that today's children are unintended victims of economic and technological progress..." or Alun Anderson "I believe that cockroaches are conscious." or Charles Simonyi. "I believe we are writing software the wrong way. There are sound evolutionary reasons why we are doing so..." My favorite single entry? Danny Hillis's. Check it out... page 246. As he admits, it sounds corny. But I think he's onto something profound. Ask him about it at TED next week. - Chris

TED Book Club: The Untied States of America

When we selected the books to send TEDsters this month, we just had to include The Untied States of America, the startling new book by futurist Juan Enriquez, who's spoken so powerfully at TED and TEDGLOBAL. Juan looks at the same facts you and I do, but discovers insights that we miss. His book, shockingly, predicts that the next 50 years could see the US (and many other parts of the world) fragment in dangerous and unexpected ways. He writes the same way he speaks. Every page is stuffed with intriguing images, surprising graphs and, as a bonus, wonderful humor. - Chris

Stunning Edward Burtynsky images

Last year one of our TED Prize winners Ed Burtynsky made a powerful wish at TED. He wanted to find a way of using his photography to make people think harder about our planet's future.

Well, this is one way to do just that. (Go to the page, take a deep breath, and run the video).

Ed asked a really smart question when he was preparing his wish. How do you turn the emotional impact of his pictures into action? His solution has been to nudge his viewers toward the fastest growing home on the web where people discover how we might create a sustainable future.... a site that, with financial help from TED and from Ed, is becoming an exhilarating force for good.  That site is worldchanging.com whose co-founder Jamais Cascio is speaking at TED this year.

If you want to support Ed's wish, please link to this as widely as possible and then email me (chris@ted.com) to say what you've done. We want to publicly acknowledge the best efforts at TED next week.

By the way, the gorgeous musical soundtrack on the video is by TEDster Michael Montes and the ingenious captions are courtesy of Bob Isherwood and Saatchi & Saatchi.

Hans Rosling, the great visualizer, to speak at TED

In December, we blogged Gapminder, the Swedish non-profit that's developed software to bring statistics to life. We were deeply impressed by their stunning interactive graphs, which help you visualize complex trends — like the distribution of poverty, in different regions of the world, over time. So we're thrilled to report that gapminder co-founder Hans Rosling, whose near-legendary talks have captured attention around the world, will join our program in Monterey next week. You'll hear a lot from Rosling in the months (and years) to come. Gapminder just negotiated a breakthrough contract with the United Nations, to bring all of the UN's statistical data into these graphs, and make them publicly available online. One small step for global understanding ...

Learning from the "New Golf"

Like many of you, when a new technology strikes my fancy, I try to learn as much about it as possible.  These days I'm interested in how the internet can enable better collaboration within design teams.  But instead of reading white papers, I'm practicing what a few of us have started to call the "New Golf".  In other words, I'm playing a video game called World of Warcraft (WoW). 

With all due respect to Salesforce.com, in my opinion it's WoW that's really cracked the "software as service" subscription business model.   For $15 a month, I can go online with millions of my closest friends and adventure around a Tolkien-ish virtual world full of elves and trolls, dungeons and dragons.  Yeah, it's geeky, but it's an extremely compelling experience... lush, beautiful, entertaining.  Amazing.

So what have I learned?  First, it really is the New Golf: WoW facilitates surprisingly rich social interactions between players.  In WoW I’ve set up meetings, arranged introductions, even asked for a favor or two.  All the things that used to happen at a country club can now occur in this online space, only with an order of magnitude more people and without the limitations of geography or tee times. 

Second, this is the first time that I’ve seen the internet really live up to its potential to enhance the performance of far-flung teams.  It’s amazing what gets accomplished in WoW – complex objectives are routinely solved using a combination of top-down leadership, individual creativity, and emergent strategies.  WoW is a prototyping lab for new paradigms of collaboration.

The most important – and honestly, most surprising – thing I’ve learned in WoW is how it forges genuine, we’ve-been-through-hell-together friendships.  Understand that when we’re online we all sport faux screen names and assume the look of imaginary elves and gnomes and trolls and orcs, so it took me a while to figure out that I was adventuring alongside web gurus like Joi Ito, Don Park, and Ross Mayfield.  In fact, that’s Don, Joi, me, and my pet bear in the photo above. Through WoW, I’ve come to trust these guys in the same way I trust my real-world collaborators. 

We can a lot about the future of work from the state of the art in entertainment. 

Is Dubai for real?

An interesting combination of factors is driving an astonishing construction boom in Dubai, including:
- $70 oil
- a ruler with extraordinary (or extraordinarily insane) vision
- geographical serendipity (shipping routes to China, India)
- avaialbility (and exploitability) of cheap labour from Asia

Result: palm-tree islands like this one being constructed at massive scale, not to mention what is planned to be the world's tallest building. (To see how the islands are being marketed, check this out from the site of Jonah Tobias who's working on this year's TED titles. Click the second link on this page. It's both awe-inspiring and horrifying.)

A breathless article in today's London Guardian wonders whether Dubai could become the world's most powerful city of the coming century.

Please tell me ths is overhyped?

What do you want to make today?

As I write this, I’m somewhere over Nebraska, squished in the back of coach class.

A perfect opportunity to re-read TED 2006 speaker Neil Gershenfeld’s delightful book Fab. 

Flipping through it reminded me once again of his exciting vision for our near-term material future.  Imagine a world where anyone can make anything.  Where, by using the fabrication equivalent of the personal computer or inkjet printer, everyone can be literate in – and have more control over – their immediate built environment.

Does your pet parrot need a web-surfing device?  Make it.  Want a solution to prevent red eye in your digital pics?  Make it (Alan Alda did).  Want a bicycle, boat, broom, or billiard table that really fits your unique life circumstances?  Make it.  Feel the power.

When I was a practicing mechanical engineer, I used to pooh-pooh this kind of thinking.  Surely my hard-won craft was beyond the realm of the masses?  Not any more.  The complex, powerful CAD tools I used then were a pain to use, and they’re still a pain.  What I want, and what the world needs, are fabrication machines and creative tools that are truly disruptive in nature, bringing “good enough” performance to a much broader audience seeking self-expression and actualization.  My little daughter is only just mastering the gumming of Cheerios right now, but how cool would it be to have her slicing aluminum with an Easy-Bake Laser Cutter when she’s five or six?  I hope it happens.

Tangibility is its own reward.  What do you want to make today?

CelebrityWatch: Al Gore

If you studiously avoided all news coming out of Utah last month, you may have missed the fact that Al Gore has emerged a movie star. An Inconvenient Truth, which premiered to standing ovations and press accolades in Park City, catapulted the former VP to celeb status at Sundance, where he stole as many headlines as the starlets in ski caps and SUVs.

The film centers on Gore's passionate campaign to warn the public about the dangers of global warming. And if you're thinking that a documentary focused on Gore discussing the greenhouse gas effect isn't an obvious blockbuster ... you may have to think again. All reports (Observer | Guardian | Washington Post) have been positively glowing. Says The Observer: "It's riveting largely because of the conviction and energy with which Gore delivers the presentation that is its backbone."

Gore will give his full presentation at TED this month (a rare divergence from our 18-minute format). And the film's producer, Lawrence Bender (Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, Kill Bill) and executive producer Laurie David (environmental activist, connector extraordinaire) may be joining us in the audience. Prepare to be persuaded ...

CompanyWatch: FON

Lots of commentary in the blogosphere this week on 3-month-old start-up FON, which just received backing from Google and Skype, as well as Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures. FON provides a model for expanding wireless internet access across the world, by offering subscribers financial incentives for sharing their bandwidth. Their goal is to become the largest hotspot network in the world. Their model was described neatly by Ethan Zuckerman, who is on FON's board of US advisers (and who will attend TED this year):

By joining FON, you agree to share your internet bandwidth with other users either as a "Linus" or a "Bill". If you’re a Linus (ala Linus Torvalds), you allow your router to be open to other Foneros around the world, which, as FON spreads, means you’ll be increasingly likely to find free wireless access as your travel. If you’re a Bill (ala Bill Gates), you can charge people for accessing your bandwidth and split the revenues with FON. If you’re not a member of FON, you're an "Alien" - you can gain access to a FON hotspot for significantly less than you’d pay to use TMobile or a similar public WiFi service.

Ethan also gives thoughts on why sharing WiFi's a cool technology for Africa. TEDGlobal Producer Bruno Giussani provides context. And FON founder Martin Varsavsky explains his vision.

DEVO Remakes DEVO

As I watched the Disney Channel with my kids this weekend I was horrified by what I saw.  Disney Records has released an album of re-recorded DEVO tunes sung by a pack of prepubescent Brittany Spears wannabes.  The album is called DEVO 2.0 and, to my greater shock and dismay, the music for the album was recorded by none other than DEVO themselves. 

I must admit that I have a long-running love affair with DEVO.  They were the very first band I heard in concert (in Boston's Orpheum Theater -- the same place I first heard Thomas Dolby) and I have never looked back.  So the idea of DEVO 2.0 was sufficiently unsettling that I shot off an email to my brother that began something like "can you believe . . . ."  But my brother is far more level headed than I when it comes to deevolution and he reminded me that this was not the first foray by DEVO into remaking their own music.  Back in 1990 DEVO put out an album of e-z listening versions of its most popular songs.  So, as my brother pointed out, DEVO 2.0 was merely further social commentary by DEVO on its own musical legacy (either that or shameless commercialism in the form of a truly painful kids album).

On closer inspection, however, I think that DEVO is indeed onto something yet again.  Music lovers have always coveted a good remake.  What is more fun at a concert than to hear one of your favorite musicians perform a song by another of your favorite musicians?  It is even fun when they perform a song by one of your least favorite musicians because they inevitably inject the song with a whole lot of their own musical essence.  Case in point, give a listen some time to DEVO's remake of the Rolling Stones Satisfaction and their musak remake of their remake of Satisfaction.  Great stuff. 

If you're like me and find musical remakes unendingly festive, you will love the podcast Coverville.  Each episode of Coverville includes a new set of remade tunes by every band under the sun (Episode 161 has Devo's Satisfaction).  The list of songs covered is eclectic and the commentary pure fun.  I just hope they don't play the DEVO 2.0's version of Whip It any time soon.  That may be too much for me to take.

Stay tuned for ... Michael Montes's Superbowl premiere

During the TED salon this fall at Joe's Pub, we were treated to the world premiere of Colobus, a dark and unsettling orchestral piece by TEDster Michael Montes, who also composed the title sequences for TED2005 and TED2006. This weekend, Montes has yet another premiere: This time, a TV commercial for the Cadillac Escalade, scored by his company, Sacred Noise, for ad agency Leo Burnett/Detroit. There's a great TED connection here: Montes met Don McKinney, a creative director for Leo Burnett, at TED2005. And executive creative director Tor Myhren will attend TED2006. And we'll watch for an update, this time next year ...

Tis the season for Superbowl ads

As Superbowl Sunday approaches, our thoughts turn lightly toward ... TV advertising, what else? And if the build-up to the game has you hungry for those great ads of Superbowls past, it might be time to revisit Apple's legendary 1984 commercial (which aired only once), as well as the delightful 2005 spoof.

And to really get in the mood, giggle your way through this extended 3-minute version of Terry Tate, Office Linebacker, one of the most amusing Superbowl ads of all time.

Steven Johnson on Charlie Rose on Google Video

Last month, Google released a new video service, allowing users to preview and purchase videos online. If you've yet to try the service out — and you just don't have time to troll for content — here's an easy way to preview: Spend 20 minutes and 99 cents watching Steven Johnson (TED03) on the Charlie Rose Show. Johnson is a TED favorite, and we got an early preview of his latest book, Everything Bad is Good for You, at a TED salon last spring. For those who missed it, Johnson's lively conversation with Charlie Rose (recorded last summer, aired last month) is worth a listen. And the media model — quickly releasing TV shows for purchase online — is definitely worth noting. But also note: The Google Video Player is, for now, PC only.