tedblog's posterous

Pendulum paintings of Tom Shannon

I'm a huge fan of sculptor & painter Tom Shannon, a gentle genius who turns science into art and art into science.  We just posted today his 2003 TED talk showing his gorgeous science-inspired sculptures and his vision for the Air Genie video airship.  In the last few months he has returned to a form of painting he invented more than 20 years ago.  He created a mechanized paint dispenser that is suspended on a giant pendulum over a canvas on the floor.   Tom sets the pendulum in motion, typically on an oval pathway, and then uses a remote control device to select with careful precision which paints are streamed onto the canvas and in what quantity.  

At his Manhattan studio the other evening, I watched him in action.  The results are spectacular. He's given me permission to share some of these images, none of which are up on his site yet.  (Apart from the first two, these are details of larger paintings.) They are to be the subject of an exhibition in New York later this year. (Watch this space).

(download)

Akoha's Inspired Minds Deck (or, the TED Pokedex)

Akoha is a card game whose players go on missions based on the cards in each hand -- with missions such as "Thank someone" and "Invite someone for coffee," it's a great excuse to be a nice person and still be kind of competitive. Akoha's new Inspired Minds Deck offers 18 missions based on TEDTalks and TED values. We love the missions ("Share a documentary"; "Photograph the need for change"). Abd we also love the little TED characters on each card, including a hip Dave Eggers type and a downright cuddly Philip Zimbardo. 

(download)

Muhammad Yunus' 3 ways to save the developing world

Via the Daily Beast : An excerpt from "Creating a World Without Poverty," by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Grameen Bank. In this essay, Yunus offers three thoughts about how luckier countries can help the developing world during this credit crisis, when gains of the past few years are being erased. The key: social business.
Read the essay >>

TED archive tapes are in New York

Exciting news for us -- 35 boxes of TED archive tapes just arrived in
our New York office. We'll be digitizing this footage, re-watching it,
and turning it into TEDTalks. We're thrilled to be able to bring you
more talks from the legendary early days of TED.

(download)

Photosynth Obama's inauguration

Via ReadWriteWeb: CNN.com's minisite "The Moment" will be Synthing the
inauguration on January 20, combining crowd snapshots of this historic
Tuesday into an immersive experience:

 "We'll take your photos from every angle, combine them with CNN's
professional shots, and produce what we hope will be an amazing
experience that will be shown live on CNN. And you thought the Jessica
Yellin hologram was cool! The synth will also be available for
everyone to see on CNN.com."

 What's Photosynth about? Watch this: