TED: Ideas worth spreading

During my daily stroll through the world of the internet, I happened upon a news report of a convention being held by a group called TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design). TED brings together an enormously diverse population of inventors, innovators, and average thinkers that are believed to hold some sort of merit in their work. I read over a few of them, and slowly began to grasp the concepts that they showed.

For example, a man named Blaise Aguera presented a project that he and his team have been working on. It's based on an idea called Photosynth. This is an idea that combines two cutting edge technologies. One of these new technologies is based on taking such high resolution images that the need for multiple web pages will be irrelevant, as we can just zoom in further to get a more detailed version of the image. While this may not seem like an amazing idea in itself, the mechanisms behind it are linked to another possibility that they have shown with Photosynth. In a demonstration, Aguera uses a common photo uploading site, www.flickr.com, to compile images of Notre Dame Cathedral and morph them together to get a full physical representation of the subject. You can actually see Notre Dame, in full detail, based on thousands and thousands of pictures, from cell phone cameras to professional photos containing many mega-pixels. The possibilities of such a technology are endless, as this makes it possible for your photos to be tagged based on details someone else tagged in their own photo.

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

Another interesting presentation by Derek Sivers offers some insight into our culture, and its effects on our view of the world. For example, he explains a story in which you encounter a Japanese man on the street, and he asks you what the block you are on is called. You reply by saying the street name. But this won't suffice, he wishes to know the name that represents the entire block. You tell him that the blocks are simply the spaces that are divided by the streets. In the inverse of the situation, you ask a Japanese man in Japan what street you are on. He doesn't understand, and instead tells you that you are in block 17. Confused, you say you wish to know the street you are standing on. He tells you that the streets are simply the spaces that are left between blocks. Sivers shows by this simple story how different our views of the world can be, based on where we come from. For example, he tells of doctors in parts of Japan that feel it is their job to keep you healthy. So, for every day you are healthy, you pay them. If you become sick, you do not pay them, and they make you well at no cost, because they failed to keep you healthy. This goes to show how things can work one way, and when completely reversed, can continue to work.

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

There are so many more stories and entertaining presentations on this website, but it would take ages to write about them all, and it would be foolish of me to do so, seeing as they are already there for anyone to view.

So, in conclusion, I'll leave you with a funny picture that illustrates my distaste for the new iPAD, and my recommendation to view this website.