"TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes)."

The presentations from the conference are all posted on a TED's website, and are free and open to public access. There is a lot to learn there, but I want to share one that was recently sent to me by a friend.

"Building sophisticated educational tools out of cheap parts, Johnny Lee demos his cool Wii Remote hacks, which turn the $40 video game controller into a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer."

This video is a neat example of a man who knows what exactly he wants, and knows exactly how to get it. He plays down his discovery of figuring out how to retool this equipment to make it work as an accessible piece of useful technology, because what he thinks is important are the effects of his work that have spread virulently.

-- JonathanFriedman - 07 May 2009