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Design

Watch “Thinking Critically about Design and Criticism” with Khoi Vinh

Khoi Vinh explains why criticism is so important to the future of our craft, and proposes ways forward to correct the situation […]

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Design Readings

Watch Jer Thorp’s “Data & Human Experience” keynote at Interaction’13 | IxDA Conference

In this talk, Jer Thorp discusses the intersection between data and human experience. He’ll go into detail a number of projects involving diverse data sets, including the 770,000 words in the Shakespeare Folio, astronomical measurements from NASA, text from nightly news broadcasts, and real-time air traffic reports […]

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China Economics Trend Watching

Watch Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat 3.0” talk at MIT OpenCourseWare

Back in 2000, Tom Friedman recounts, the world began to shrink and flatten, under the influence of digital interconnectivity. Elaborating on his World is Flat thesis, Friedman describes how this new global order puts creative, entrepreneurial individuals in the driver’s seat, and poses distinct new challenges and opportunities. The digital platform that connects Bangalore, Boston and Beijing enables users from any of these places to “plug, play, compete, connect and collaborate,” and is changing everything, says Friedman […]

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Innovation Readings

Watch Michael Norton’s “How to buy happiness” talk at TED

At TEDxCambridge, Michael Norton shares fascinating research on how money can, indeed buy happiness — when you don’t spend it on yourself. Listen for surprising data on the many ways pro-social spending can benefit you, your work, and (of course) other people […]

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Design Readings

Watch John Hodgman’s “Design, explained” talk at TED

John Hodgman, comedian and resident expert, “explains” the design of three iconic modern objects. (From The Design Studio session at TED2012, guest-curated by Chee Pearlman and David Rockwell.) […]

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Design Economics Information Technology Innovation Trend Watching

Watch “What we’ve Learned from 5 million Books” talk at TED by Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel

Have you played with Google Labs’ NGram Viewer? It’s an addicting tool that lets you search for words and ideas in a database of 5 million books from across centuries. Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel show us how it works, and a few of the surprising things we can learn from 500 billion words […]

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Design Economics Innovation Trend Watching

Watch Alex Steffen’s “The shareable future of cities” talk at TED

How can cities help save the future? Alex Steffen shows some cool neighborhood-based green projects that expand our access to things we want and need — while reducing the time we spend in cars […]

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Design Innovation

Watch Bruce Sterling’s Closing Keynote on IxDA | Interaction ‘11 Conference

Bruce Sterling, author, journalist, editor, and critic, was born in 1954. Best known for his ten science fiction novels, he also writes short stories, book reviews, design criticism, opinion columns, and introductions for books ranging from Ernst Juenger to Jules Verne.

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Innovation Trend Watching

Watch Kathryn Schulz’s “On being wrong” talk at TED

Most of us will do anything to avoid being wrong. But what if we’re wrong about that? “Wrongologist” Kathryn Schulz makes a compelling case for not just admitting but embracing our fallibility […]

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China Design Trend Watching

“Ancient Chinese Art” from The New York Times’ Video Library

Maxwell Hearn, the new head of Asian Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, demonstrates the ancient art of understanding and appreciating Chinese scroll paintings […]