Misc: [more]

On June 10, 2008, TED.com won three Webby Awards, with an acceptance speech of "Millions watching lecturers' who knew?". They won 'Best Visual Design - Function', 'Best Navigation/Structure' and 'Podcasts'. Congratulations TED.com.

TED logo
From the TED.com site: "TED began in 1984 as a conference devoted to the converging fields of technology, entertainment and design. Over the years, the scope has broadened. But the formula remains the same: Gather the world's leading thinkers and doers; offer them four days of rapid-fire stimulation. The result? Unexpected connections. Extraordinary insights. Powerful inspiration."

The lectures span technology, entertainment, design, business, neuroscience, often with a touch (or heavy lashing) of comedy. They're mostly 20 minutes long (I think some are longer), and this limit helps to focus the speakers. The presenters are all experts, or noted personalities, and usually give entertaining, as well as inspirational presentations. TED's tagline: "Ideas worth spreading" rings true for most of the speeches. The 'Whats new in Tech' stream is guaranteed to wow, 'How the mind works' may cause some introspection, and 'What makes us happy?' should raise a smile. New lectures are available weekly.

There are heaps of great lectures recorded and ready for online viewing or free download either through the TED site itself, as an iTunes podcast or as a regular (RSS) podcast. I use Miro (the new incarnation of Democracy Player) to aggregate and view online content, and TED streams are available in the Miro directory.