Day 2 Report from TEDGlobal

Posted by: Andy Reinhardt on July 22, 2009

No question, today was far better and more interesting than the first day of TEDGlobal in Oxford. It started out strongly with a witty talk by attorney and Internet expert Jonathan Zittrain, who underscored the collaborative and communitarian nature of the Internet.

Zittrain was followed in a strikingly different vein by Evgeny Morozov (whom I first met when he was a tech guru at our content partner Transitions Online). Evgeny cast the democratizing influence of the Web in a starkly different light, showing how authoritarian regimes can use the Net to co-opt public opinion, spin news, and even chase down dissidents. While it’s true that the Net can bring unprecedented amounts of information into homes in China, Burma, and Iran, it can also serve as a kind of “opiate of the masses” that keeps people at home gambling and downloading porn rather than getting them out on the streets.

Next up was British anthropologist Stefana Broadbent, who talked about her research into how people use social networking. She told a number of stories about ingenious applications of technology—including one about a Brazilian couple living in Italy who set up a webcam at their dining room table once a week and “eat” dinner together with their family back home—and she shed light on how technology has broken down the longstanding barrier between the workplace and personal life.

After Broadbent, the audience was treated to two tech demos. The first was of an unnamed future browser from the Mozilla Foundation, the maker of Firefox, that permits what presenter Aza Raskin called “you-centric” computing. The browser assumes a far more intelligent role in understanding the user and what he or she wants to do, harnessing natural language and other technologies to make the experience of using the Web easier and less techie. The second demo, by Carlos Ulloa, the founder of Papervision 3D, showed how Flash can be enhanced with 3D capabilities that put the user in charge of creating an entirely new and more interactive online experience.

The morning finished off with a hilarious talk by Ogilvy vice chairman Rory Sutherland, who not only managed to keep the audience in stitches but also made incisive and frankly brilliant observations about the value of branding and product differentiation in today's competitive marketplace.

The second session of the morning turned towards science and the environment. I was especially impressed with the first speaker, biodiversity archivist Cary Fowler, who has been a major driver behind the creation of the Svalbard Global Seed Bank. The remarkable project—a kind of safe-deposit box for biodiversity tucked deep into a Norwegian mountain—could represent the future of the planet in the event that global warming and mankind's continued depredations continue to wipe out plant species at the terrifying rate we're already seeing. I was also moved by the work of Janine Benyus, a specialist in so-called bio-mimicry. Among other things, she works to convince industry to look first to nature for answers to technical challenges—noting, for instance, the ability of trees to lift water without mechanical pumps or of shark skin to resist bacterial growth.

The afternoon sessions were also quite scientific in nature, ranging from a delightful introduction into how we see color by researcher Beau Lotto to an examination of how children acquire moral judgement and empathy by rising neurologist Rebecca Saxe. Unfortunately, some of the afternoon sessions were a bit too esoteric, verging towards incomprehensible. But a charming talk by legendary Oxford quantum theorist David Deutsch injected a perfect note of nerdy sincerity, with its plea that we not settle for explanations of our world and the universe that don't stand up to scientific rigor.

Perhaps the most memory talk of the conference so far came from Welsh writer Elaine Morgan, who at nearly 90 was likely the oldest speaker ever to take the stage at a TED conference. Morgan has waged a lonely battle for more than 30 years to reconsider the evolutionary orthodoxy that homo sapiens emerged from land-based chimpanzees, postulating instead that we may have come from aquatic creatures. Whether her theory becomes accepted—and the chances are slim, given the resistance she describes in the academic community—her spirited talk brought the audience to its feet for sustained and enthusiastic applause.

I couldn't finish without noting two terrific musicians who entertained the TEDsters today. In the morning, we heard from singer Imogen Heap, who combined ingenious electronic sampling and looping with a beautiful voice and lovely piano playing for a sound somewhere between Laurie Andersen and Fiona Apple, with touches of Kate Bush and Jewel thrown in. The afternoon featured rising Swiss singer Sophie Hunger, who played guitar and piano and thrilled the audience with her supple, wide-ranging voice. After all the mind-bending tech, nature, math, and science, the ability of these talented women to transport listeners to another place was a vivid reminder that sometimes more visceral human expression trumps the cerebral.