What Tech Should Be Seen At TED? 216
J0sh writes "I've been lucky enough to be asked to do tech spotting for the TED conference, one of the biggest and most exclusive technology, entertainment, and design conferences in the US. Many of the folks there are superstars in their field (like Craig Venter and Stephen Hawking), and most of them have the opportunity to take action on the technology that they see there. The problem is that I'm only one guy trying to find the most mind-blowing technology on the planet in order to inform the few people who can make an immediate impact with it. I figured if there's one place to find those kinds of advances, it's here. What unknown tech is about to completely change the world that these people need to know about? Let me know."
might not change the world (Score:5, Interesting)
But this is cool if it works:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore.html [wired.com]
http://www.gizmag.com/go/7214/ [gizmag.com]
frightening (Score:5, Interesting)
A venue with the kind of visibility and recognition as TED shouldn't send out "spotters" who need to ask Slashdot, it should follow some established protocols for finding and evaluating work. And I think the haphazard selection processs is reflected in the quality of the program.
few picks (Score:2, Interesting)
* firefox (for revolutionizing the web)
* petrol from algae tech ( great potential there )
* photonic switch ( see http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Sydney-Uni-hero-chip-breaks-light-speed-record/0,130061791,339290492,00.htm [zdnet.com.au] )
regards
Coal Liquefaction (Score:4, Interesting)
If one technology could really change the world, it would be coal liquefaction. It's an 80 year old, proven, technology - that no one has ever heard of.
What is it? It solves the gasoline crunch by converting coal (which is crazy abundant, especially in America) into gasoline. It throws off energy as a byproduct (which helps solve our energy grid needs) as well as CO2 -- which sounds bad, but can be trapped easily since it is in a closed loop.
Cleanly converting coal to gas is more expensive than the normal FT process, but still produces gas at around the $2 a gallon level, which would be enough to kickstart our economy, rescue the airlines, save energy costs for poor people (as much wealthy environmentalists hate to admit it, poor people are the ones that get fucked by sky-high gas and energy costs), and produce CO2, which is needed for, aha!, Craig Venter's latest pet project, which involves custom bacteria that consume large amounts of C02, and which he's publicly stated he needs a large supply thereof.
Best of all, it's a mature technology. It was used to power the entire Nazi war machine in WWII, and South Africans under apartheid. Not because evil countries have an affinity for it, but because they were cut off from the world's oil supplies.
And yet when Coal Liquefaction was debated in congress, retarded children like our very own Senator Feinstein claimed that it was an immature technology, and voted it down.
Re:Coal Liquefaction (Score:1, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Tin Eye... (Score:3, Interesting)
The TinEye image search engine [tineye.com] should be up there - http://www.tineye.com/ [tineye.com] - one of the most mindboggling things I've seen in a hell of a long time.
New materials (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Low tech == High tech (Score:5, Interesting)
Yup - it's the small, simple and readily available things that count, a few ideas:
* The rollable water container - a round thing that you can roll over to get water with, rather than carrying it on your back/arms/head
* The little heater with an AA rechargeable battery in it for the fan, that you recharge at the local solar panel
* The huge and incredible mobile phone informal/illegal repair subculture in developing countries - such as putting 2 simms in the same mobile with a simple switch mechanism.
* The pot with sand in it, and a smaller pot inside, that uses the physical properties of wet sand to create a refrigeration system for fruit and other perishables at markets
* The solar furnace - a curved mirror or reflective sheet with a black pot in the middle.
* The indian project to use harvested stomach bacteria to process recycled food into gas for cooking.
Loads of this stuff is happening and IT teams are out in the craziest places doing incredible things - these examples above are old, and I could dig out links if needed, but there's 10000 other projects that TED could highlight, even if you just want to talk about software: as well as the IT needed to create information infrastructures around completely non-IT stuff - like (this is more of a developed world example) the simple discussion boards and mailing lists used to power next generation barter/free/exchange systems like freecycle, freeconomy, feral trade and various post-LETS barter systems that are now taking off now that the administrative time-suck has been dealt with. Next step I think, will be project management systems that are just as simple and low-tech, so you can organise say a milk round around it.
Re:Coal Liquefaction (Score:3, Interesting)
>>Sasol (the âoeevilâ South African company) built a fairly large GTL plant in Qatar (in association with Chevron).
I never said Sasol was evil. In fact, my father (an ordinary man, not a bigwig) has talked with them several times about the cost of building their plants, how much gasoline would cost per barrel coming out of it, etc.
>>Love it how you simplify complex geopolitical situations into evil and not evil.
You must be new here.
And yeah, it's not especially surprising, since I don't want to end up writing a bloody dissertation about everything from the Siege of Stalingrad (which was about Nazi oil) to institutionalized racism and the reactionary riots in South Africa which were quite monstrous for their part. It's Slashdot. People just skip the large posts anyway.
Tell speakers to make shorter introductions. (Score:1, Interesting)
Many TED talks start with a 10 minute introduction before they get to the point. This means that I have to watch for 10 minutes before I discover its the talk is really worth watching. This format works well for a conference where people cannot leave the room, but it doesn't work well on internets sites like Youtube where people have a fairly short attention span.
I personally find that around half of the TED-talks are worth watching, so it is a big investment for me to spend 10 minutes before I get to hear what the talk is about. I think you would get more internet attention if you advised speakers to keep their introductions shorter.
It's more interesting than it sounds. (Score:4, Interesting)
and the answer is .... WATER (Score:3, Interesting)
Dean Kamen's converting sewage (or absolutely *any* contaminated water) into pure clean water at fraction of the cost has the potential to change the world on a huge scale. Especially Africa.
He has has spoken at TED before. He is a pure legend.
http://gizmodo.com/370698/colbert-first-vid-of-dean-kamens-miracle-water-distiller [gizmodo.com]
OK he invented it a few years ago, but hopefully its ready for rollout.
How about Haptic Radar (Score:1, Interesting)
Haptic Radar [slashdot.org] seems like an interesting tech demo for TED. On one hand it could be useful to the visually impaired, on the other, it gives some insight into how people go about perceiving the world.
Why oil price increase equals economic trouble (Score:4, Interesting)
The oil price has more than doubled in the last year, and quadrupled in the last three years. There has never before been such an extreme, sustained increase in the oil price. This will cause severe inflation, and the economic consequences will be severe.
This is what's causing all the fuss. The economies of the world are in the early stages of heading into a very severe inflationary recession. Some people go further and anticipate economic collapse, others fear something similar to The Great Depression [wikipedia.org]. The technical term for it is stagflation [wikipedia.org]. Investors look for ways out of trouble, but the consensus is that there is no easy way out of this one. Some investors have therefore panicked. Panic is dangerous because it fuels itself, making the panic worse.
You are not going to see the same impact in Finland because Finland has much higher fuel taxes than in the USA, so the price increase of retail fuels has been much smaller in Finland than in the USA. But recession in the USA, which is the world's largest economy, will be felt in other countries, including Finland.
Re:Low tech == High tech (Score:2, Interesting)
Re rollable water container...
pulled at 3 mph - standardwalking speed over flat but unimproved dirt roads, this puppy lasts for how many hours before the wall springs a leak?
People carry water containers for a REASON.
Carts are multi-purpose. Single taskers suck.
Re:Farm subsidies (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny thing is, "poor countries" are enacting their own tariffs [twnside.org.sg], if they get a chance (nobody financing a civil war) or don't care about getting loans from development agencies.
I don't think I'll ever become a "localvore" ... there is only so much cabbage and potatoes I can eat ... or I'll have to become a nomad, to be a 'localvore' in a more than one climate zone.
"What free trade also does for third world farmers is encourage them to grow for export rather than for the local markets." -- if they don't grow crops for export, how are they going to buy computers ( and iPods :-P ) ?