TED Global Conference 2010

Went to a great presentation at Weapon 7, where Andy Hobsbawm presented a summary of TED Global Conference 2010 in Oxford.

TED is a ideas conference, where people from all walks of life present ideas, products, services and new ways of approaching tasks.

Interesting comment he made about the concept of TED was that it has developed for the 18 min ideas concept presentation something similar to 30 sec TV ad.

I have tried to find links for presos that were done, but they are not all up as yet. Apologies if I have got some of the notes I took slightly wrong. I have also taken presenter summaries from TED website - well worth a view every so often.

http://blog.ted.com/

Two Big Themes

· Heads in the Clouds – New Network Cloud Power

· Network Narratives – Stories

Neil Gershenfeld – Fab Academy (3D Print)

As Director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, Neil Gershenfeld explores the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds. His Fab Labs (fabrication laboratories) allow anyone to make (almost) anything.

Peter Molyneux – ‘Kate and Milo’

The head of Microsoft's European games division, Peter Molyneux is building an astonishing new "virtual friend" who interacts with you.

Developing games you need to create structures for people – complete freedom is too much

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-07/13/peter-molyneux-milo-and-kate-xbox-kinect-preview

Tan Le – Psychic Remote Control

Tan Le is the head of Emotiv Systems, which is developing the next generation of human-machine interface -- a headset that takes input directly from the brain.

http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_brainwaves.html

Sebastian Seung – Computational Seung

Sebastian Seung is a leader in the new field of connectomics, currently the hottest space in neuroscience, which studies, in once-impossible detail, the wiring of the brain.

Mapping the Brain - There are 100bn wires in the brain and 10 nodes per wire (I think these numbers are correct) – He is trying to unravel all of them!!

Stefano Mancuso - Plant neurobiologist

Stefano Mancuso is a founder of the study of plant neurobiology, which explores signaling and communication at all levels of biological organization, from genetics to molecules, cells and ecological communities. Plants are mini-beings.

Matt Ridley - Rational optimist

British author Matt Ridley argues that, through history, the engine of human progress and prosperity has been, and is, "ideas having sex with each other."

http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.html

Steven Johnson - Writer

Writer Steven Berlin Johnson is the best-selling author of six books on the intersection of science, technology and personal experience. His forthcoming book examines "Where Good Ideas Come From."

He suggests that ideas are less ‘strokes or briilance’ rather more small pieces loosely connected.

Think Slow Hunches (Google) more than Blink (Malcolm Gladwell)

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_on_the_web_as_a_city.html

Mitchell Besser- HIV/AIDS fighter

How can mothers with HIV avoid passing it to their kids? In South Africa, Mitchell Besser tapped a new resource for healthcare: moms themselves. The program he started, mothers2mothers, trains new mothers to educate and support other moms

‘Mothers are a Communities Greatest Resource’

Mother with Mother Mentors

This is truly inspiring!! along with the next guy...

Sugata Mitra's - "Hole in the Wall"

Experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they're motivated by curiosity and peer interest.

Another thought is the idea a Granny Cloud – Self Organised Learning

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

Tom Chatfield - Gaming theorist

Tom Chatfield thinks about games -- what we want from them, what we get from them, and how we might use our hard-wired desire for a gamer's reward to change the way we learn. Just a point about gaming industry – it’s $50bn growing to $80bn in next few years – that’s 4 times the size of the music industry.

7 lessons from games for transforming engagement

http://tomchatfield.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-ted-talk-seven-gaming-lessons-for.html#more

Networked Narratives

Telling Stories –

http://www.utalkmarketing.com/Pages/CreativeShowcase.aspx?ArticleID=15636&Filter=0&Keywords=&Order=&Page=103&Title=Canal_Plus_%E2%80%98The_Wardrobe%E2%80%99_advert

Giles Corbett

Only public thing 15 years ago was your birth certificate.

Three rules for social networking going forward:

· the right to be inconsistent

· the right to forget

· the right to lie

Interesting chart which shows how you lead separate lives and how social has broken the lines between that – maybe not such a good thing.

http://www.slideshare.net/LifeIsBetterON/giles-corbett-for-ted-global-2010-public

David McCandless – Data Visualisation

Using complex datasets to reveal unexpected insights into our world.

Snake Oil

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-supplements/

Ethan Zuckerman

Blogger, digital visionary Ethan Zuckerman studies how the world -- the whole world -- uses new media to share information and moods across cultures, languages and platforms.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ethan_zuckerman.html

Sheena Iyengar - Psycho-economist

Studies how people choose (and what makes us think we're good at it). Way you look at things changes when you look globally. Western World (differs greatly from rest of world) in terms of choice.

We have three assumptions in our lives

· You should make choices

· More choice is better

· Never say no to choice

Used a great example of choice in terms of child in hospital who was on life support. Decision made differently in USA vs France and the impact of who makes the decision.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing.html

Ze Frank

Humorist, web artist Ze Frank rose to Internet fame in 2001 with his viral video “How to Dance Properly,” and has been making online comedy and web toys ever since.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ze_frank_s_nerdcore_comedy.html

Chill Out - http://www.zefrank.com/chillout/

Young women, Facebook and Toilets.

One third of women aged 18 to 34 check Facebook when they first wake up, before even going to the toilet, according to new research. 

At the same time I came across what is perhaps a more worrying piece of trivia:  according to cellular-news reporting on SimplySwitch research, 850,000 mobile phones are dropped down toilets in the UK every year.

Bringing these two pieces of information together I can only imagine that more people than ever before are updating their status and checking in on their mates on Facebook while they're on the throne...

App Inventor

So you've had this brilliant idea for an app (and you didn't wanna give it away for free when we ran the app competition a few months ago) and you've just been waiting to finish reading the "Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours" book before you have a go at making it. But it probably bored and confused you and someone else has beaten you to it!!

Now you can build an app without any programming knowledge with the App Inventor for Android!

It's been in testing for a year and Google are now extending invitations to the general public.

http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/

City maps in the style of 1980s video games

For some strange reason I really like this!!

Flock - The Social Browser

Flock is a Social browser that has been around for a while. It seems to be getting a little traction and they are starting to introduce some of the nice convenient functionality you're used to in Facebook and Twitter.

It's a browser that tries to bring the shared aspect to browsing the internet, live / real-time opportunities to communicate to others what you're looking at, drag and drop images into tweets, links and chat through Facebook on a page.

I have only had a little play and it seems complex at the start but I wonder if it will become simple?

I look forward to when we can properly be on the same page of a website at the same time and talk to each other. Sharing the same content at the same time, for example buying things for your house and making sure you and your other half agree, maybe even share the payment.

Download here at http://www.flock.com/

Keyboards and mice suck.

Having spent a few weeks out of the office I’ve been lucky enough to have plenty of time to play with Apple’s new iPad.  It’s lovely, but flawed.  You can curl up on the couch with it and watch your favourite TV series (but the screen is too reflective) or browse the web (but crippled by not having Flash), it’s got gaming potential, its not a half bad reader (but rubbish in the sun) and can work as a phone if you use a headset.  Its easy to carry, the battery lasts well and you can use it anywhere.  What’s not to like?   It’s a great new start for tablet computing that I think will be seen as a milestone in a decline in netbook sales and another nail in the coffin for home desktop computing.

But the big thing the iPad has done for me is make me realise I don’t need a keyboard and mouse outside the office.  And that actually, they suck, big time.   They define the form factor for a device, they demand lots of space, you need to use both hands or thumbs, a level surface.

We  started using them on typewriters back in the 1870’s and like the armidillo, evolution and innovation seem to have passed them by.  Seriously, after an iPad, it feels positively medieval bashing out these words on a keyboard, and reaching clumsily for that mouse.  The interface between man and machine has been stuck in the mud for hundreds of years. 

In the past fifty years we’ve given washing machines more computing power than the technology that put us on the moon and yet we’re still thumping out our thoughts in “Keyboard and Mouse One-Point-Zero” (K&M 1.0).

Mobile and gaming seem to be inspiring what little ‘Keyboard and Mouse’ innovation.  I saw a predictive keyboard on android device recently that grows the keys it thinks you might need next – much better than the iPhone keyboard.  There’s been a projected keyboard, and there’s been track-balls, touchpads and nipples to replace the mouse.  But where’s the game changer?  Where’s the tech that transforms our relationship with computers?

The iPad has proved there are alternatives that can suit people’s lifestyles, it’s badly flawed, a small step in the right direction, but we still need, at the least K&M1.5, or indeed K&M2.0?