TED

hat tip Loic Le Meur

Johanna Blakely talks about how the fashion industry remains creative, innovative and profitable despite no copyright protection.

Fascinating talk by George Whitesides.

This is a great TED talk by Rory Sutherland.

William Kamkwamba (wikipedia) has accomplished something seemingly impossible. At age 14 and unable to attend school, he used information from a couple library books to build a windmill out of junk to provide electricity for his family's home. He has since built several more windmills, allowing his family to farm better crops. He is now attending school after several venture capitalists pledged to fund his education after his appearance at the 2007 TEDGlobal conference in Tanzania.

Photos by Tom Rielly

see also
GOOD - African Dynamo
Wired - Teen’s DIY Energy Hacking Gives African Village New Hope

Where are the robots? The long-standing, futuristic vision of robots still hasn't arrived. I tend to be skeptical about the possibilities they might provide. However, for specific, limited tasks I think they can be very effective. Researchers are doing some intriguing work in robot development, particularly with mobility. Here are a number of talks and videos on recent robotic research in robot mobility. Some of the things researchers have been able to accomplish are quite fascinating. I found the Big Dog and Gecko robots particularly interesting.

see also
Modular Snake Robots
Boston Dynamics

modsnake hat tip boing boing

I was reminded of this presentation the other day. I first saw this several years ago when Guy Kawasaki blogged about it.

Read Guy's analysis of her presentation in his As Good As Steve Jobs post and his response to those who questioned his sanity for making such a claim in his Majora II post.