{"id":662008,"date":"2013-08-07T09:00:59","date_gmt":"2013-08-07T13:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ted.com\/?p=80699"},"modified":"2013-08-07T13:29:10","modified_gmt":"2013-08-07T17:29:10","slug":"ted-news-in-brief-jeff-bezos-buys-the-washington-post-alex-odundo-plans-a-makerspace-in-kenya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/662008","title":{"rendered":"TED News in Brief: Jeff Bezos buys The Washington Post, Alex Odundo plans a makerspace in Kenya"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past week, we\u2019ve noticed a lot of fascinating TED-related news items. Here, some highlights.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">Jeff Bezos, the co-founder of Amazon (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/jeff_bezos_on_the_next_web_innovation.html\">watch his TED Talk<\/a>), made waves on Monday when it was announced that he will buy <i>The Washington Post<\/i> for $250 million. \u201cThe paper\u2019s duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners.\u00a0We will continue to follow the truth wherever it leads,\u201d he writes to the staff of the paper <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national\/jeff-bezos-on-post-purchase\/2013\/08\/05\/e5b293de-fe0d-11e2-9711-3708310f6f4d_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop\">in an open letter<\/a>. \u201cJournalism plays a critical role in a free society, and <i>The Washington Post<\/i> &#8212; as the hometown paper of the capital city of the United States &#8212; is especially important.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">Yves Rossy, aka \u201cThe Jetman\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/yves_rossy_fly_with_the_jetman.html\">watch his talk<\/a>), made his first flight in the US last week, zooming through the skies alongside a B-17 bomber during the Experimental Aircraft Association&#8217;s AirVenture show in Wisconsin. <a href=\"http:\/\/gma.yahoo.com\/blogs\/abc-blogs\/jetman-makes-us-debut-high-above-wisconsin-145859468.html?vp=1\"><i>Good Morning America<\/i> aired a clip<\/a> of the daredevil in action.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">Steven Johnson (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/speakers\/steven_johnson.html\">watch one of his three talks<\/a>) is making a new television show. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stevenberlinjohnson.com\/2013\/08\/how-we-got-to-now.html\"><i>How We Got to Now with Steven Johnson<\/i><\/a> will air on PBS in fall 2014. As he writes, \u201cEach hour-long episode takes one facet of modern life that we mostly take for granted &#8212; artificial cold, clean drinking water, the lenses in your spectacles &#8212; and tells the 500-year story of how that innovation came into being.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">A TED Talk published last week showed how the high tech of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/peter_van_manen_how_can_formula_1_racing_help_babies.html\">Formula 1 race cars is being used to save babies<\/a>. Today, in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2013\/jun\/17\/bin-laden-hunt-technology-used-in-cakes?CMP=twt_gu\"><i>The Guardian<\/i><\/a>, read how the technology that helped find Osama bin Laden is now being used to prolong the shelf life of cakes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">TED Fellow <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.ted.com\/2012\/03\/23\/born-to-innovate-fellows-friday-with-alex-odira-odundo\/\">Alex Odundo<\/a> has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indiegogo.com\/projects\/victoria-innovation-center\">started an Indiegogo campaign<\/a> to create a makerspace in Kisumu, Kenya. He <a href=\"http:\/\/fellowsblog.ted.com\/2013\/08\/02\/inspiration-innovation-education-alex-odundo-launches-funding-campaign-for-makerspace-in-kenya\">tells the TED Blog<\/a>, \u201cThe makerspace [will] help innovators, engineers and designers who have good ideas to walk in and be offered the tools to do their work \u2026 and to test and produce products.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">Mathematician Steven Strogatz (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/steven_strogatz_on_sync.html\">watch his talk<\/a>) is the Very Important Puzzler in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2013\/07\/30\/206963290\/solving-for-x-live-from-the-2013-world-science-festival\">newest \u201cAsk Me Another\u201d<\/a> radio quiz show on NPR &#8212; which also features our contributing editor, Ben Lillie, in his role as curator of the <a href=\"http:\/\/storycollider.org\/\">Story Collider<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">During the 2009 G20 summit protests in London, a man named Ian Tomlinson was killed by the Metropolitan police. His death was at first claimed to be by natural causes &#8212; until <i>The Guardian<\/i> sourced and published amateur footage with evidence to the contrary. After a four-year battle led by his family, the police have finally <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2013\/aug\/05\/ian-tomlinson-apology-met-police?CMP=twt_gu\">acknowledged for the first time<\/a> that an officer unlawfully killed Tomlinson. This is, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.ted.com\/2013\/07\/10\/death-of-deportee-jimmy-mubenga-declared-unlawful-thanks-to-ted-speaker-paul-lewis\/\">once again<\/a>, thanks to the work of citizen journalism advocate Paul Lewis. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/paul_lewis_crowdsourcing_the_news.html\">Watch his talk\u2014he specifically mentions this case<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/rundown\/2013\/08\/detroit-today-washington-tomorrow.html\">On PBS.org<\/a>, Larry Kotlikoff gives an interesting analysis of \u201cgenerational accounting\u201d &#8212; the various ways that local governments in the US cook their books to hide the cost of future liabilities, like pensions. Bill Gates called out the problem <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/bill_gates_how_state_budgets_are_breaking_us_schools.html\">in this TED Talk<\/a>, which focused on how state governments pay their retirees and short their schools.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">Here\u2019s what happens when Sir Ken Robinson (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley.html\">watch his most recent TED Talk<\/a>) and Disney\/ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney get together for a porch-side conversation about education, imagination and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Read this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/3014819\/disney-anne-sweeney-sir-ken-robinson\">double interview via <i>Fast Company<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.euronews.com\/2013\/08\/05\/ted-winner-mitra-warns-teachers-to-be-ready-for-change\/\">EuroNews.com profiles<\/a> TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.html\">watch his talk<\/a>) to explore his ideas of self-organized learning.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">Caitria and Morgan O\u2019Neill, who together created the natural disaster management system Recovers.org (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/caitria_and_morgan_o_neill_how_to_step_up_in_the_face_of_disaster.html\">watch their talk<\/a>), were honored as one of seven Champions of Change at the White House. Read about it <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.recovers.org\/2013\/07\/31\/recovers-recognized-by-the-white-house-as-champions-of-change\/\">on their blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">Damon Lindelof, the writer of <i>Lost <\/i>and <i>Prometheus<\/i> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/playlists\/36\/damon_lindelof_5_talks_i_sent.html\">browse his playlist of five favorite TED Talks<\/a>), speaks to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vulture.com\/2013\/08\/script-doctor-damon-lindelof-on-blockbuster-screenwriting.html\">Vulture.com<\/a> about the race for bigger and better destruction moments in summer blockbuster movies. Is it a good thing?<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\">While the US&#8217; Discovery Channel was criticized for its <a href=\"http:\/\/entertainment.time.com\/2013\/08\/07\/discovery-channel-provokes-outrage-with-fake-shark-week-documentary\/\"><em>Megalodon<\/em><\/a> special earlier this week &#8212; a piece of speculative fiction marketed as fact &#8212; there is some accurate shark information on offer during Shark Week. TED speaker Greg Stone (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/greg_stone_saving_the_ocean_one_island_at_a_time.html\">watch his talk<\/a>), who&#8217;s been called the Indiana Jones of the Ocean, will appear twice on\u00a0August 8, once at\u00a010pm\u00a0Eastern, on &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/conservation.us5.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=4bfaef5c1200d6a6b885a0e03&amp;id=90bf15a92b&amp;e=f2c63e82b5\">Alien Sharks of the Deep<\/a>,&#8221;\u00a0and then at\u00a011pm EST,\u00a0on &#8220;Shark After Dark.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/gocomments\/tedconfblog.wordpress.com\/80699\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/comments\/tedconfblog.wordpress.com\/80699\/\" \/><\/a> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/stats.wordpress.com\/b.gif?host=blog.ted.com&#038;blog=14795620&#038;%23038;post=80699&#038;%23038;subd=tedconfblog&#038;%23038;ref=&#038;%23038;feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TEDBlog\/~4\/G8YGfgi_cKs\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past week, we\u2019ve noticed a lot of fascinating TED-related news items. Here, some highlights. Jeff Bezos, the co-founder of Amazon (watch his TED Talk), made waves on Monday when it was announced that he will buy The Washington Post for $250 million. \u201cThe paper\u2019s duty will remain to its readers and not to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-662008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}