The Internet may help authoritarian regimes more than it hurts them, argues Evgeny Morozov in his new book, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. Born to a mining family in Belarus, Evgeny himself was once a firm believer in the power of new media to liberate oppressed people. His experience and research, however, have convinced...

By Shyam Sankar and Gabe Rosen The Internet is the new Wild West, a frontier big enough for every pioneer and outlaw to roam free. Today, The New York Times revealed that hackers in China had spent the last four months infiltrating its computer systems and pilfering employee passwords. As in the old West, it’s not a question of if you’ll ...

Hacking is a term that prompts intense emotions, as we’ve seen in recent years with the likes of Kevin Mitnick, Evgeniy Bogachev and Sabu. But one thing’s clear: hackers can draw attention to important issues like nobody’s business. And by exposing weaknesses in our current online systems, they often help the web both evolve and improve. Such fo...

In 2009, political scientist P.W. Singer gave a TED Talk in which he predicted that the growing use of robots in war would change the realities of combat. Four years, and thousands of US drone strikes later, he talks to journalist Matthew Power; an edited version of their conversation follows. Matthew Power: In a recent article you discussed ...

For the past four years, TED has held an annual evening salon in New York City to find talents, voices and ideas that the world needs to hear. At TED@NYC, an energetic audience gathers over dinner and drinks and watches a passionate lineup of speakers deliver short, rapid-fire talks and performances. The twist? For this event, we put out an op...

Announcing the speaker lineup for TEDGlobal 2011 -- happening July 11-15, 2011, in Edinburgh, and via webcast around the world. The 12 sessions of TEDGlobal expand on the overall conference theme, "The Stuff of Life," with session titles such as "Bodies," "Bad Guys," "Coded Patterns" ... TEDGlobal is hosted by Bruno Giussani, TED's Europ...

Tempest tells Mashable that he plans to customize Baxter with actual hands. And as he goes, he’ll be sharing the programming for the robot with both MIT and GitHub. As Tempest tells the site, “It’s time for magicians and technologists to collaborate.”

In today’s talk, Lyne talks cybercrime, revealing some of the new methods that hackers and malicious code writers are using to grab our data. And he shows how we accidentally share that data -- without even realizing it. For example, did you know that most smartphones embed GPS data in the photos we take? He asks, “As we play with these shiny ...

In a time that feels unsettled and uncertain, technology and those who create it will play a crucial role in what’s coming next. How do we define that future, as opposed to letting it define us? At a special TED Salon held as part of the Dell Technologies World conference and hosted by TED's Simone Ross, four speakers shared ideas for buildi...

Some employees can work 9am to 5pm, five days a week. Others are available on evenings and weekends. But in today’s talk, filmed at the TEDSalon in London, entrepreneur Wingham Rowan describes another type of worker -- one who has a highly unpredictable schedule. “Think of someone who has a recurring but unpredictable medical condition, s...

Instead of looking at a foreign language as an art to be mastered and perfected, think of it as a tool you can use to get a result, says communication skills trainer Marianna Pascal. This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all...

The paradox of finding peace in a war zone, and a way to make aid more effective -- by decentralizing it and thus speeding it up. Each week, TEDx chooses four of our favorite talks, highlighting just a few of the enlightening speakers from the TEDx community and its diverse constellation of ideas worth spreading. Below, this week’s talks, wh...