TED Talks Technology

By TED

Technology

What's TED Talks Technology about?

Some of the world's leading inventors and researchers share demos, breakthroughs and visions onstage at the TED conference, TEDx events and partner events around the world. You can also download these and many other videos free on TED.com, with an interactive English transcript and subtitles in up to 80 languages. TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.

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How I'm using biological da...

12.02.2019

What kinds of stories move us to act? To answer this question, creative technologist Heidi Boisvert is measuring how people's brains and bodies unconsciously respond to different media. She shows how she's using this data to determine the specific narrative ...

TED Talks Technology episodes:

12.02.2019 How I'm using biological data to tell better stories -- and spark social change \| Heidi Boisvert What kinds of stories move us to act? To answer this question, creative technologist Heidi Boisvert is measuring how people's brains and bodies unconsciously respond to different media. She shows how she's using this data to determine the specific narrative ...
11.27.2019 The incredible chemistry powering your smartphone \| Cathy Mulzer Ever wondered how your smartphone works? Take a journey down to the atomic level with scientist Cathy Mulzer, who reveals how almost every component of our high-powered devices exists thanks to chemists -- and not the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs that ...
11.12.2019 In the war for information, will quantum computers defeat cryptographers? \| Craig Costello In this glimpse into our technological future, cryptographer Craig Costello discusses the world-altering potential of quantum computers, which could shatter the limits set by today's machines -- and give code breakers a master key to the digital world. See how ...
11.07.2019 What obligation do social media platforms have to the greater good? \| Eli Pariser Social media has become our new home. Can we build it better? Taking design cues from urban planners and social scientists, technologist Eli Pariser shows how the problems we're encountering on digital platforms aren't all that new -- and shares ...
10.29.2019 The price of a "clean" internet \| Moritz Riesewieck Millions of images and videos are uploaded to the internet each day, yet we rarely see shocking and disturbing content in our social media feeds. Who's keeping the internet "clean" for us? In this eye-opening talk, documentarians Hans Block and ...
10.28.2019 How to bring affordable, sustainable electricity to Africa \| Rose M. Mutiso Energy poverty, or the lack of access to electricity and other basic energy services, affects nearly two-thirds of Sub-Saharan Africa. As the region's population continues to increase, so will the need to build a new energy system to grow with ...
10.24.2019 How you can help transform the internet into a place of trust \| Claire Wardle How can we stop the spread of misleading, sometimes dangerous content while maintaining an internet with freedom of expression at its core? Misinformation expert Claire Wardle explores the new challenges of our polluted online environment and maps out a plan ...
10.22.2019 The danger of AI is weirder than you think \| Janelle Shane The danger of artificial intelligence isn't that it's going to rebel against us, but that it's going to do exactly what we ask it to do, says AI researcher Janelle Shane. Sharing the weird, sometimes alarming antics of AI algorithms ...
10.10.2019 How we're using DNA tech to help farmers fight crop diseases \| Laura Boykin Nearly 800 million people worldwide depend on cassava for survival -- but this critical food source is under attack by entirely preventable viruses, says computational biologist and TED Senior Fellow Laura Boykin. She takes us to the farms in East ...
10.08.2019 The transformative power of video games \| Herman Narula A full third of the world's population -- 2.6 billion people -- play video games, plugging into massive networks of interaction that have opened up opportunities well beyond entertainment. In a talk about the future of the medium, entrepreneur Herman ...
09.17.2019 How we use astrophysics to study earthbound problems \| Federica Bianco To study a system as complex as the entire universe, astrophysicists need to be experts at extracting simple solutions from large data sets. What else could they do with this expertise? In an interdisciplinary talk, TED Fellow and astrophysicist Federica ...
09.11.2019 How deepfakes undermine truth and threaten democracy \| Danielle Citron The use of deepfake technology to manipulate video and audio for malicious purposes -- whether it's to stoke violence or defame politicians and journalists -- is becoming a real threat. As these tools become more accessible and their products more ...
07.10.2019 Origami robots that reshape and transform themselves \| Jamie Paik Taking design cues from origami, robotician Jamie Paik and her team created "robogamis": folding robots made out super-thin materials that can reshape and transform themselves. In this talk and tech demo, Paik shows how robogamis could adapt to achieve a ...
07.01.2019 How augmented reality is changing activism \| Glenn Cantave Glenn Cantave uses technology to highlight narratives of the oppressed. In a tour of immersive visual projects, he shares his work with the team at Movers and Shakers NYC, a coalition that executes direct action and advocacy campaigns for marginalized ...
06.20.2019 The living tech we need to support human life on other planets \| Lynn Rothschild What would it take to settle Mars? In a talk about the future of space exploration, Lynn Rothschild reviews the immense challenges to living elsewhere in the universe and proposes some bold, creative solutions to making a home off planet ...
06.07.2019 The most detailed map of galaxies, black holes and stars ever made \| Juna Kollmeier Humans have been studying the stars for thousands of years, but astrophysicist Juna Kollmeier is on a special mission: creating the most detailed 3-D maps of the universe ever made. Journey across the cosmos as she shares her team's work ...
05.30.2019 What it takes to launch a telescope \| Erika Hamden TED Fellow and astronomer Erika Hamden leads the team building FIREBall, a telescope that hangs from a giant balloon at the very edge of space and looks for clues about how stars are created. She takes us inside the roller-coaster, ...
05.16.2019 How AI could become an extension of your mind \| Arnav Kapur Try talking to yourself without opening your mouth, by simply saying words internally. What if you could search the internet like that -- and get an answer back? In the first live public demo of his new technology, TED Fellow ...
05.13.2019 Digital humans that look just like us \| Doug Roble In an astonishing talk and tech demo, software researcher Doug Roble debuts "DigiDoug": a real-time, 3-D, digital rendering of his likeness that's accurate down to the scale of pores and wrinkles. Powered by an inertial motion capture suit, deep neural ...
05.06.2019 Everything around you can become a computer \| Ivan Poupyrev Designer Ivan Poupyrev wants to integrate technology into everyday objects to make them more useful and fun -- like a jacket you can use to answer phone calls or a houseplant you can play like a keyboard. In a talk ...
04.23.2019 Can we cure genetic diseases by rewriting DNA? \| David R. Liu In a story of scientific discovery, chemical biologist David R. Liu shares a breakthrough: his lab's development of base editors that can rewrite DNA. This crucial step in genome editing takes the promise of CRISPR to the next level: if ...
04.16.2019 The artificial muscles that will power robots of the future \| Christoph Keplinger Robot brains are getting smarter and smarter, but their bodies are often still clunky and unwieldy. Mechanical engineer Christoph Keplinger is designing a new generation of soft, agile robot inspired by a masterpiece of evolution: biological muscle. See these "artificial ...
04.10.2019 Wearable tech that helps you navigate by touch \| Keith Kirkland Keith Kirkland is developing wearable tech that communicates information using only the sense of touch. He's trying to figure out: What gestures and vibration patterns could intuitively communicate ideas like "stop" or "go"? Check out his team's first product, a ...
03.22.2019 The beautiful future of solar power \| Marjan van Aubel The Sun delivers more energy to Earth in one hour than all of humanity uses in an entire year. How can we make this power more accessible to everyone, everywhere? Solar designer Marjan van Aubel shows how she's turning everyday ...
03.15.2019 How to keep human bias out of AI \| Kriti Sharma AI algorithms make important decisions about you all the time -- like how much you should pay for car insurance or whether or not you get that job interview. But what happens when these machines are built with human bias ...
03.06.2019 How we can store digital data in DNA \| Dina Zielinski From floppy disks to thumb drives, every method of storing data eventually becomes obsolete. What if we could find a way to store all the world's data forever? Bioinformatician Dina Zielinski shares the science behind a solution that's been around ...
02.27.2019 The self-assembling computer chips of the future \| Karl Skjonnemand The transistors that power the phone in your pocket are unimaginably small: you can fit more than 3,000 of them across the width of a human hair. But to keep up with innovations in fields like facial recognition and augmented ...
02.19.2019 How do we find dignity at work? \| Bryn Freedman Roy Bahat was worried. His company invests in new technology like AI to make businesses more efficient -- but, he wondered, what was AI doing to the people whose jobs might change, go away or become less fulfilling? The question ...
02.08.2019 Ink made of air pollution \| Anirudh Sharma What if we could capture pollution in the air around us and turn it into something useful? Inventor Anirudh Sharma shares how he created AIR-INK, a deep black ink that's made from PM 2.5 pollution. See how he hacked together ...
02.04.2019 How do we learn to work with intelligent machines? \| Matt Beane The path to skill around the globe has been the same for thousands of years: train under an expert and take on small, easy tasks before progressing to riskier, harder ones. But right now, we're handling AI in a way ...
01.11.2019 A beginner's guide to quantum computing \| Shohini Ghose A quantum computer isn't just a more powerful version of the computers we use today; it's something else entirely, based on emerging scientific understanding -- and more than a bit of uncertainty. Enter the quantum wonderland with TED Fellow Shohini ...
01.09.2019 What should electric cars sound like? \| Renzo Vitale Electric cars are extremely quiet, offering some welcome silence in our cities. But they also bring new dangers, since they can easily sneak up on unsuspecting pedestrians. What kind of sounds should they make to keep people safe? Get a ...
01.08.2019 How India's smartphone revolution is creating a new generation of readers and writers \| Chiki Sarkar India has the second largest population of any country in the world -- yet it has only 50 decent bookstores, says publisher Chiki Sarkar. So she asked herself: How do we get more people reading books? Find out how Sarkar ...
12.13.2018 How to be "Team Human" in the digital future \| Douglas Rushkoff Humans are no longer valued for our creativity, says media theorist Douglas Rushkoff -- in a world dominated by digital technology, we're now just valued for our data. In a passionate talk, Rushkoff urges us to stop using technology to ...
12.12.2018 Why you should treat the tech you use at work like a colleague \| Nadjia Yousif Imagine your company hires a new employee and then everyone just ignores them, day in and day out, while they sit alone at their desk getting paid to do nothing. This situation actually happens all the time -- when companies ...
11.27.2018 When technology can read minds, how will we protect our privacy? \| Nita Farahany Tech that can decode your brain activity and reveal what you're thinking and feeling is on the horizon, says legal scholar and ethicist Nita Farahany. What will it mean for our already violated sense of privacy? In a cautionary talk, ...
11.20.2018 How video games turn players into storytellers \| David Cage Have you ever watched a film or read a novel, wishing that you could change the narrative to save your favorite character? Game designer David Cage allows you do just that in his video games, where players make decisions that ...
11.20.2018 How a fleet of wind-powered drones is changing our understanding of the ocean \| Sebastien de Halleux Our oceans are unexplored and undersampled -- today, we still know more about other planets than our own. How can we get to a better understanding of this vast, important ecosystem? Explorer Sebastien de Halleux shares how a new fleet ...
11.09.2018 The case for a decentralized internet \| Tamas Kocsis Who controls the internet? Increasingly, the answer is large corporations and governments -- a trend that's threatening digital privacy and access to information online, says web developer Tamas Kocsis. In this informative talk, Kocsis breaks down the different threats to ...
11.05.2018 The case for curiosity-driven research \| Suzie Sheehy Seemingly pointless scientific research can lead to extraordinary discoveries, says physicist Suzie Sheehy. In a talk and tech demo, she shows how many of our modern technologies are tied to centuries-old, curiosity-driven experiments -- and makes the case for investing ...
10.31.2018 How tech companies deceive you into giving up your data and privacy \| Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad Have you ever actually read the terms and conditions for the apps you use? Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad and his team at the Norwegian Consumer Council have, and it took them nearly a day and a half to read the terms ...
10.30.2018 What everyday citizens can do to claim power on the internet \| Bryn Freedman Technology architect Fadi Chehadé helped set up the infrastructure that makes the internet work -- essential things like the domain name system and IP address standards. Today he's focused on finding ways for society to benefit from technology. In a ...
10.26.2018 How will we survive when the population hits 10 billion? \| Charles C. Mann By 2050, an estimated 10 billion people will live on earth. How are we going to provide everybody with basic needs while also avoiding the worst impacts of climate change? In a talk packed with wit and wisdom, science journalist ...
10.16.2018 Why we have an emotional connection to robots \| Kate Darling We're far from developing robots that feel emotions, but we already have feelings towards them, says robot ethicist Kate Darling, and an instinct like that can have consequences. Learn more about how we're biologically hardwired to project intent and life ...
09.24.2018 The simple genius of a good graphic \| Tommy McCall In a talk that's part history lesson, part love letter to graphics, information designer Tommy McCall traces the centuries-long evolution of charts and diagrams -- and shows how complex data can be sculpted into beautiful shapes. "Graphics that help us ...
09.17.2018 Your fingerprints reveal more than you think \| Simona Francese Our fingerprints are what make us unique -- but they're also home to a world of information hidden in molecules that reveal our actions, lifestyles and routines. In this riveting talk, chemist Simona Francese shows how she studies these microscopic ...
09.14.2018 3 ways to make better decisions -- by thinking like a computer \| Tom Griffiths If you ever struggle to make decisions, here's a talk for you. Cognitive scientist Tom Griffiths shows how we can apply the logic of computers to untangle tricky human problems, sharing three practical strategies for making better decisions -- on ...
09.10.2018 How AI could compose a personalized soundtrack to your life \| Pierre Barreau Meet AIVA, an artificial intelligence that has been trained in the art of music composition by reading more than 30,000 of history's greatest scores. In a mesmerizing talk and demo, Pierre Barreau plays compositions created by AIVA and shares his ...
09.06.2018 Let's launch a satellite to track a threatening greenhouse gas \| Fred Krupp When we talk about greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide gets the most attention -- but methane, which often escapes unseen from pipes and wells, has a far greater immediate impact on global warming. Environmentalist Fred Krupp has an idea to fix ...
08.24.2018 How we can use light to see deep inside our bodies and brains \| Mary Lou Jepsen In a series of mind-bending demos, inventor Mary Lou Jepsen shows how we can use red light to see and potentially stimulate what's inside our bodies and brains. Taking us to the edge of optical physics, Jepsen unveils new technologies ...

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