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4th of July vacation: 7 ideas of where to go in the US and beyond

(CNN) — Looking to make a break for it for the 4th of July holiday weekend or another long summer weekend? The options are endless — you just need to decide if it’s a USA road trip you’re after or a hop-skip-jump over the Atlantic. The warm weather travel season officially kicked off Memorial Day weekend, but statistics from AAA indicate that more Americans travel later in the summer: Last year, for example, 41.3 million Americans traveled around Memorial Day, while a projected 46.9 million traveled around Independence Day.

Most Americans opt for a road trip, according to AAA, but ambitious travelers needn’t rule out Canada or even parts of Europe.

CNN rounded up seven possibilities, ranging from a couple of less-trodden international destinations to a few slightly under-the-radar US spots and some in between. All have one thing in common: They’re perfect for a minisummer escape on July 4th weekend or later in the summer.

Big Sur, California

Big Sur enjoys a remoteness that’s not easy to come by these days.

Michael Troutman

Nearly two years after landslides shut down a section of California’s historic Highway 1 and closed off Big Sur to travelers, visitors are back to revel in the awe-inspiring natural beauty of the mystical expanse of California shoreline.

Located between San Francisco and Los Angeles, travelers come here to get away. The area enjoys a remoteness not easy to come by these days: Cell reception is spotty at best, and the nearest big grocery store is at least an hour’s drive away.

While they’re cut off from the rest of the world, visitors can take in the panoramas of the rugged coasts and witness the dramatic, crashing waves of the Pacific from nearly every vantage point. Also worth checking out is Bixby Creek Bridge, a stunning piece of architecture, and the hiking trails and coastal beaches of Garrapata State Park, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and Point Lobos State Natural Preserve.

Big Sur has rustic and luxurious hotels, from the sustainable accommodations at the modest but comfortable Glen Oaks Big Sur to the posh, celebrity-favorite Post Ranch Inn. A treatment in the spa, set in the middle of the forest, is the icing on the cake.

Glen Oaks, 47080 Highway 1, Big Sur, CA 93920, +1 831 667 2105

Buffalo, New York

Buffalo’s Silo City is for art lovers of all kinds.

Drew Brown

As soon as summer hits, this city on the shores of Lake Erie in upstate New York comes alive. Happy to shed its winter coat in favor of blue skies and outdoor seating at many a restaurant and bar along Elmwood Avenue, just north of downtown, Buffalo soars in summer.

Architecture buffs will find no shortage of areas to explore.

From the Tudor mansions around Delaware Park to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Darwin D. Martin House and a little further afoot, Graycliff, overlooking the lake, the city teems with majestic architectural works. Both Lloyd Wright buildings offer tours of the properties’ meticulously restored interiors and expansive grounds. Cap off the Wright tours with a visit to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, where a collection of modern and contemporary art awaits.

Those wanting a dose of art in the form of poetry or outdoor installations (courtesy of students from SUNY Buffalo) should head straight to Silo City, a historic grain elevator complex refashioned as a cultural community, complete with a food and drink venue.

And on that note: Travelers whose primary motivation is eating and drinking are in good hands. While you can’t go far without finding excellent chicken wings (they were birthed here, after all), relative newcomers Black Sheep and Dobutsu deserve attention, too.

Finally, if your long weekend should extend to a Tuesday, you won’t want to miss Larkin Square’s food truck lineup. Nosh on something from Ted’s (footlong with onion rings) or Lloyd (braised beef taco) while you listen to free live music.

For a truly special stay, reserve a room at Hotel Henry, another of the city’s architectural masterpieces.

Delaware Park, 83 Parkside Ave., Buffalo, NY 14214, +1 716 838 1249Graycliff, 6472 Old Lake Shore Road, Derby, NY 14047, +1 716 947 9217 Silo City, 105 Silo City Row, Buffalo, NY 14203Black Sheep, 367 Connecticut St., Buffalo, NY 14213, +1 716 884 1100Dobutsu, 500 Seneca St., Suite 119, Buffalo, NY 14204, +1 716 322 6004Larkin Square, 745 Seneca St., Buffalo, NY 14210, +1 716 362 2665Hotel Henry, 444 Forest Ave., Buffalo, NY 14213, +1 716 882 1970

Champagne, France

A 45-minute train ride from Paris lies Champagne. A stay at the Royal Champagne Hotel can’t be beat.

Courtesy of Royal Champagne Hotel & Spa Terrasse

The birthplace of the bubbly and a UNESCO World Heritage site, France’s Champagne region is just 45 minutes from Paris by train. It has long been popular with day-trippers, but there’s plenty to entice travelers into a multiday stay.

Oenophiles can visit some of the 450 Champagne producers and cooperatives for tastings and tours. From the highly reputable Moet & Chandon and to under-the-radar Henriet-Bazin, there’s something to satisfy every type of sipper.

But it’s not a lost cause for teetotalers; history buffs can visit Reims Cathedral, an imposing medieval Roman Catholic site dating back to the 13th century. Fitness fanatics, meanwhile, can take advantage of the long stretches of uncrowded roads for scenic bike rides and runs. A hot air balloon ride, a boat ride down the Marne River or horseback riding through the valley are also on offer here.

Then there are the restaurants, worth a trip in and of themselves. One of the hottest tables is the three-Michelin starred L’Assiette Champenoise in Reims, which serves creative French cuisine using seasonal produce.

For the spendy set, the new Royal Champagne Hotel & Spa is the “it” place to stay. Built like a contemporary amphitheater with 49 chic rooms, the property boasts a Michelin-starred restaurant Le Royal, a sprawling spa, a bar with more than 200 bottles of Champagne and a fleet of electric bikes for guests.

Moet & Chandon, 20 avenue de Champagne, 51200, Epernay, France, +33 3 26 51 20 20Henriet-Bazin, 9 rue des Mises, 51380 Villers-Marmery, France, +33 03 26 84 07 79

Cotswolds, England

Soho Farmhouse, a 100-acre estate in Oxfordshire, makes for a lovely — if spendy — stay.

Courtesy of Soho House Farmhouse

At close to 800 square miles, the Cotswolds, a less than three-hour drive from London, is sprawling, but visitors can still tackle at least a small part of it on a short getaway. The region’s beauty — think fields of meadows full of blooming daffodils and dozens of quintessential Jane Austen-era villages with stone houses shining underneath the sun — is especially vibrant in summer.

Days can be spent in the region exploring some of the historic houses such as Berkeley Castle and Blenheim Palace, built in the 18th century and designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Outdoor pursuits — long, meandering walks from one village to the next, biking along the country roads, fishing, golfing and horseback riding — add to the area’s allure.

Cheltenham, one of the largest cities in the Cotswolds, is full of diversions, too. The minimetropolis is known for its photograph-worthy Regency era architecture, dating back to the early 19th century and distinguished by elegant looking buildings with white stucco facades. And, it’s home to buzzy restaurants and festivals, including ones for science and literature.

The region’s accommodation scene, which once included mainly stuffy, formal hotels, has gotten hip in recent years. The Wild Rabbit, a modern inn in Chipping Norton with an excellent restaurant to boot, is one example. Bolderfacers, including Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, favor Soho Farmhouse, a 100-acre estate in Oxfordshire.

The Wild Rabbit, Church Street, Kingham, Oxfordshire, OX7 6YA, United Kingdom, +44 01608 658389 Soho Farmhouse, Great Tew, Chipping Norton, OX7 4JS, United Kingdom, +44 01608 691 000

Providence, Rhode Island

Providence’s arts and culinary scene is flourishing, and it’s a lovely long weekend getaway.

Courtesy Providence Tourism

Providence’s flourishing arts and culinary scenes are nearly on par with major urban areas around the world.

Over the past decade, the city’s downtown has been transformed into an open-air museum with murals and sculptures. One example is WaterFire, a multisensory art installation composed of a series of more than 80 bonfires that seem to float in the three rivers flowing through the city. This showpiece will burn bright on July 20 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.

Performance art is also a draw: The Providence Fringe Festival, running from July 21 to 28, features performances by emerging and established artists. The lineup includes everything from improv comedy to variety shows with music and drag.

Then there’s the culinary scene. The popular Providence Restaurant Weeks, where diners can enjoy three-course affordable meals at otherwise pricey restaurants, runs from July 7 to 20.

But visitors will eat well no matter when they visit. Waterman Grille, set on the Blackstone River and serving French influenced cuisine with New England produce, is one of the most coveted reservations in town and for good reason: The cocktail list is creative, and the steaks, cooked on a wood-fired grill, are a standout.

WaterFire, 4 N Main St., Providence, RI 02903, +1 401 273 1155

St. Michaels, Maryland

Luxury seekers will enjoy the Inn at Perry Cabin and its fleet of vintage sailboats.

Courtesy Inn at Perry Cabin

Only a 90-minute drive or 45-minute boat ride from the nation’s capital, the historic seaside town of St. Michaels is home to picturesque landscapes, rich heritage and waterside adventures. Known as “the town that fooled the British” during the War of 1812 when it faked a blackout to prevent an attack, it’s an ideal getaway for anyone interested in sailing, golf, history and seafood.

The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is among the top attractions. Visitors can learn about the region’s history and culture by exploring its 12 exhibition buildings, checking out the fleet of historical boats and taking a narrated cruise highlighting life on the Eastern Shore.

Exploring the charming downtown filled with antique shops and seafood restaurants such as The Crab Claw, famous for its crab clusters, is another way to while away the afternoon.

The microdistillery Lyon Distilling Co., which produces an impressive range of rums, is also worth checking out.

To stay, there are plenty of family-run bed and breakfasts. For luxury seekers, the winning choice is Inn at Perry Cabin. Home to a prestigious fleet of vintage sailboats, golf course, a spa and a restaurant serving regional cuisine, it’s a retreat in and of itself, and no one will blame you if you choose not to venture far from the property.

The Crab Claw, 304 Burns St., St. Michaels, MD 21663, +1 410 745 2900

Toronto, Canada

Summer, boasting more than 30 festivals in July and August alone, is a prime time to appreciate what Toronto has to offer.

Courtesy of Tourism Toronto

Canada’s largest city is a global entertainment and cultural hub worthy of serious attention. Centrally located between New York City, Chicago and Montreal, the metropolis is a 90-minute flight for much of the US and Canadian population. It’s known for its diversity — more than 50% of the residents were born outside the country — and this shows up in the city’s events, restaurants and shops.

Featuring more than 30 festivals in July and August alone, including ones for jazz, Caribbean culture, beer and local cuisine, summer is a prime time to appreciate what Toronto has to offer.

Outdoor pursuits aren’t usually the first thing people think of when they hear big city, but Toronto’s strong in this category. Visitors can bike or hike in Rouge Park, the country’s only urban national park, and canoe around the Toronto Islands.

Thrill seekers shouldn’t miss the attraction called EdgeWalk, a 30-minute walk outside and 116 stories above the city on a five-foot long ledge atop the iconic CN Tower.

The markets (we recommend Kensington Market, Gerrard India Bazaar and Evergreen Brick Works), selling everything from handmade goods by local artisans and antiques to spices and craft beers on tap, are another draw.

Hotel-wise, the Kimpton Saint George and St. Regis (the brand’s only property in Canada), both downtown, are the newest additions to the lineup of the town’s many luxury properties.

EdgeWalk, CN Tower 290 Bremner Blvd., Toronto, ON M5V 3L9, Canada, +1 416 86 86937St. Regis, 325 Bay St., Toronto, ON M5H 4G3, Canada, +1 416 306 5800

Stacey Lastoe contributed additional reporting to this story.

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caseyveres · 4 years

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I saw the commercial did you? It was amazing and I started to do some research and I found this...

I saw the commercial did you? It was amazing and I started to do some research and I found this website. It is so sweet!

From Google’s “Loretta” Super Bowl Commercial to Immortality

The emergence of voice computing interfaces represents the biggest technological disruption since the smartphone. Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are becoming the new universal remotes to reality, upending multibillion-dollar business models in Silicon Valley and beyond. Today, though, most of what people do with voice devices is fairly prosaic—setting timers, playing music, and asking basic factual questions.

In the future, however, one of the most dramatic applications of voice technology will be to enable what’s known as “virtual immortality”—the creation of digital replicas that live on after the real people who inspired them have died. Early signs of this future have already started to show up. The new Google Super Bowl ad, “Loretta,” showcases the company’s search technology as it has never been used before: As a tool to help us remember facts about loved ones who have passed away.

The tech company HereAfter, meanwhile, uses conversational technology to help people to save and interactively share their life stories. Not surprisingly, the company’s founder has an interesting take on the “Loretta” ad, which you can read here. Other projects have begun exploring artificial immortality as well. Consider a groundbreaking effort called New Dimensions in Testimony. A joint effort by the Institute for Creative Technologies and the USC Shoah Foundation, the project aims to memorialize Holocaust survivors.

In 1943 the Nazis captured a ten-year-old boy named Pinchas Gutter and his family and imprisoned them in concentration camps. Gutter’s sister and parents were killed in the gas chambers before he could even say goodbye. He would go on to be beaten, shuttled between different labor camps, and put on a death march before finally being freed by the Red Army in 1945. Gutter, now in his eighties, has devoted himself to sharing these horrors, giving talks and answering questions. But like all of the remaining Holocaust survivors, Gutter will not be around much longer to do so. Testimonies like his have, of course, been captured in print, audio, and film. But telling a story in person has unique power. As Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, once explained, “There’s nothing like the human witness who can look you in the eye and say, ‘Look, this is what happened to my husband. This is what happened to my children. This is what happened to my grandparents.’”

Targeting the immediacy of in-person storytelling, the New Dimensions team interviewed Gutter and more than a dozen other Holocaust survivors, asking them hundreds of questions apiece in multiday sessions. The interviews took place on a soundstage inside of what looked like a giant geodesic dome. Mounted on the inside of the dome were thousands of tiny LED lights and thirty cameras recording the survivors from every angle. Using visual-effects technologies that were originally developed for military training simulators and movies such as Avatar, the project’s scientists transformed these recordings into movie clips, which, when projected onto a special screen, appear to be three- dimensional. As holographic display techniques continue to improve, the scientists will be able to create even more lifelike holograms. They could project Gutter or another survivor into any room, illuminate him as if by the ambient lighting of that space, and allow people to walk around him. Paul Debevec, a professor of computer science at USC, says that the goal is to make it “seem like they are sitting in the same room as the audience.”

ICT’s conversational-AI experts, in turn, created a natural-language system to interpret what people were asking about and retrieve an appropriate answer in the digital version of the survivor’s brain. Those answers might be short but often are many minutes long. The system is currently being displayed in museums around the United States. David Traum, an ICT computer scientist, says he believes that interactive preservations of the dead will become widespread in the future. If the price of the technology comes down enough, ordinary people may keep versions of their late relatives around.

Fritzie Fritzshall, another Holocaust survivor who participated in the New Dimensions project, is a believer in the technology. Most of Fritzshall’s family perished in concentration camps, forever silencing their voices. Fritzshall, too, will die before long, and she says she is glad that her digital double will continue to share her narrative. “I have passed it on to my twin, so to speak,” Fritzshall told a journalist. “When I’m no longer here, she can answer for what’s asked of me. She will carry on the story forever.” Click on Google’s Loretta commercial to check out these guys!

source https://himpoks.blogspot.com/2020/02/i-saw-commercial-did-you-it-was-amazing.html source https://lovebakerscookie.tumblr.com/post/190614625529

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lovebakerscookie · 4 years

Text

I saw the commercial did you? It was amazing and I started to do some research and I found this website. It is so sweet!

From Google’s “Loretta” Super Bowl Commercial to Immortality

In the future, however, one of the most dramatic applications of voice technology will be to enable what's known as “virtual immortality”—the creation of digital replicas that live on after the real people who inspired them have died.

Early signs of this future have already started to show up. The new Google Super Bowl ad, “Loretta,” showcases the company’s search technology as it has never been used before: As a tool to help us remember facts about loved ones who have passed away.

The tech company HereAfter, meanwhile, uses conversational technology to help people to save and interactively share their life stories. Not surprisingly, the company's founder has an interesting take on the “Loretta” ad, which you can read here.

Other projects have begun exploring artificial immortality as well. Consider a groundbreaking effort called New Dimensions in Testimony. A joint effort by the Institute for Creative Technologies and the USC Shoah Foundation, the project aims to memorialize Holocaust survivors.

Gutter, now in his eighties, has devoted himself to sharing these horrors, giving talks and answering questions. But like all of the remaining Holocaust survivors, Gutter will not be around much longer to do so. Testimonies like his have, of course, been captured in print, audio, and film. But telling a story in person has unique power. As Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, once explained, “There’s nothing like the human witness who can look you in the eye and say, ‘Look, this is what happened to my husband. This is what happened to my children. This is what happened to my grandparents.’”

Using visual-effects technologies that were originally developed for military training simulators and movies such as Avatar, the project’s scientists transformed these recordings into movie clips, which, when projected onto a special screen, appear to be three- dimensional. As holographic display techniques continue to improve, the scientists will be able to create even more lifelike holograms. They could project Gutter or another survivor into any room, illuminate him as if by the ambient lighting of that space, and allow people to walk around him. Paul Debevec, a professor of computer science at USC, says that the goal is to make it “seem like they are sitting in the same room as the audience.”

David Traum, an ICT computer scientist, says he believes that interactive preservations of the dead will become widespread in the future. If the price of the technology comes down enough, ordinary people may keep versions of their late relatives around.

Click on Google's Loretta commercial to check out these guys!

source https://himpoks.blogspot.com/2020/02/i-saw-commercial-did-you-it-was-amazing.html

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creative-mindss · 4 years

Text

I saw the commercial did you? It was amazing and I started to do some research and I found this website. It is so sweet!

From Google’s “Loretta” Super Bowl Commercial to Immortality

Click on Google's Loretta commercial to check out these guys!

source https://himpoks.blogspot.com/2020/02/i-saw-commercial-did-you-it-was-amazing.html

0 notes

ramialkarmi · 6 years

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How the scrappy TED conference became a juggernaut worth millions — and where it wants to go next

TED, the media organization behind the popular ideas conference and video talks, is expanding.

The 33-year-old company has stayed out of politics for most of its existence, but as political tensions create a crisis of ideas, TED now has to figure out where it's going next.

The first stop, beginning this month, is a new TV show in India.

"So, uh, politics," Chris Anderson said as he paced across the stage in the Vancouver Convention Center. "Politics. Politics ... How do I say this?"

It was a Monday evening this past April, and Anderson was standing in front of a sea of attendees at the 2017 TED Conference, where nearly 2,000 executives, entrepreneurs, celebrities, artists, and scientists had descended for five days of thought-provoking talks. Anderson, TED's director, was doing his best to address the elephant in the room.

In the three months since Donald Trump had been sworn in as president of the United States, nearly every news story and water-cooler chat had been tinged with political rhetoric. TED, an organization that says it's set on remaining apolitical, was now thrust into the mix.

Anderson said he was sick of politics, to which he received raucous cheers. Then he said what could become a guiding philosophy for TED: "This week, we're not going to escape it entirely," he said. "But we are going to do our best to put it in its rightful place."

A company on the rise faces a new reality

TED started 33 years ago as a low-budget, in-person series of 18-minute talks. In the past decade, it's grown into a $65 million juggernaut. All around the world, TED produces talks (available to watch online), podcasts, and books, offers fellowships and grants, and gives little-known speakers the chance to become industry leaders just by taking the TED stage.

This month it's launching its most ambitious project yet, "TED Talks India: Nayi Soch," an eight-part TV series that will be broadcast in Hindi. It's TED's first non-English TV program, and it's expected to reach millions of people.

TED has hit an inflection point. The company was founded on the premise that fresh, innovative ideas can shape the future. But as social-media bubbles have made it easier to ignore ideas that don't appeal to us, an increasing number of people seem uninterested in stepping out of their comfort zone. Whether it's Trump's election win or the UK's Brexit, the world has shown signs of turning inward. TED's success hinges on that not happening.

Politics and TED can still be compatible

In the wake of October's Las Vegas Mandalay Bay massacre — the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history — political debates about gun control reopened and closed in a matter of weeks. But Anderson, seated in a quiet space at TED's New York City headquarters a few weeks later, maintained that no topic, not even gun control, was too sensitive for the politically neutral TED stage.

He recalled a recent trip to Vermont during which someone informed him that the state had one of the lowest murder rates in the US despite a high rate of gun ownership.

"Maybe having the argument [on the TED stage] given by someone who loves guns, has hunted, and gets the pleasure and the appeal of them" would work better, Anderson said, "rather than the nanny wagging their finger at you and saying 'No, you mustn't.'"

TED relies on a three-pronged test to determine if a talk is worth including in a conference lineup.

The first is whether the talk gives people a fresh way of seeing the world. Anderson's quintessential example is Barry Schwartz's 2005 talk, "The Paradox of Choice," in which Schwartz, a psychologist, suggested that people can be paralyzed by how much choice they have, not liberated by it.

The second is whether the talk offers the audience a clever solution to a given problem, or the promise of a better future.

The third is inspiration. The talk should express an idea in a way that compels people to act.

The test has come to be even more crucial over the past few years. In a press call ahead of this year's TED Conference, Anderson said that "ideas have never mattered more."

"We have this tool for bridging that allows any two humans to see the world a bit differently. Call the tool what you want: reason, discussion, sharing of ideas. It's actually an amazing thing that it can happen at all," Anderson told Business Insider. "The single most terrifying thing about the current moment is that we are throwing away that superpower and descending into more animal-like behavior."

A dinner party goes viral

When designer and architect Richard Saul Wurman launched TED in 1984, he called it the dinner party he always wanted to have but couldn't. Wurman united technology, entertainment, and design into one multiday event. He called it "TED." (Wurman is a fan of cheeky acronyms. Recently, the 82-year-old hosted a dinner party called EAT, wherein conversation had to center on envy, admiration, and terror.)

Wurman and his assistant organized the first TED conference for 300 of Wurman's closest friends and colleagues. If someone flubbed a line or lost their way entirely, Wurman, who sat onstage for every talk, would sometimes leave his chair and stand directly behind the speaker. It was his quiet way of saying, "Time to wrap things up."

Despite TED's unveiling of the world's first compact disc — quite the feat at the time — it wasn't until 1990 that Wurman held his second conference. Gradually, the event began to attract bigger names and bigger audiences.

"Steve [Jobs] would call me up at home and say, 'What stuff do you want at the conference this year as far as equipment?'" Wurman recalled.

Wurman sold the enterprise, in 2000, to Future PLC, a publishing company that Anderson had built into a media giant in the 1990s. Through his personal nonprofit, the Sapling Foundation, Anderson bought TED from Future PLC in 2001 for $6 million. The company has stayed under Anderson's watch since.

Under Anderson's stewardship, TED has grown into a bona-fide kingmaker.

"It's not an exaggeration to say my life very much divides itself into pre-TED and post-TED," Sarah Kay, a spoken-word poet, told Business Insider. Kay's 2011 talk, "If I Should Have a Daughter," has amassed 10.5 million views since it hit the TED site. "I'm very much aware that my career would not be what it is had that video not gone online."

Leadership expert and author Simon Sinek said TED has given a similar golden touch for his career. When Sinek's 2009 TEDx talk, "How Great Leaders Inspire Action," was uploaded to the TED site, it coincided with his first book, "Start With Why," which has gone on to sell nearly a million copies and has seen rising sales every year since the talk was uploaded. At 34 million views, "How Great Leaders Inspire Action" is the third-most-viewed TED talk of all time.

"All of our careers have been catalyzed thanks to TED," Sinek told Business Insider, referring to the site's top-viewed speakers. "When you hang out backstage at TED now, the anxiety is palpable. People truly believe it's this make-or-break thing for their careers."

Even people who are already famous when they hit the TED stage feel this pressure. Author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell gave his first TED talk in 2004. He chose as his topic the mystery of creating the perfect spaghetti sauce.

"I was very nervous, and in fact I never liked that talk because I lose my way halfway through," Gladwell told Business Insider. "It's kind of obvious if you watch it. To me, it's painfully obvious."

TED-driven fame doesn't always lead to positive outcomes.

In 2012, Harvard psychologist Amy Cuddy gave a talk called "Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are." It hinged on a 2010 study in which she found standing like Wonder Woman boosted testosterone and lowered stress.

Almost overnight, "power posing" became a life hack for millions. But as Susan Dominus recently reported for The New York Times Magazine, a movement among psychologists looking to highlight flaws in research has since discredited Cuddy's 2010 study.

The prominence Cuddy gained from TED made her an easy scapegoat, Dominus wrote. In the spring Cuddy left her tenure-track job at Harvard.

Getting bigger has brought new challenges

Anderson saw the TED acquisition as his big second chance to deliver these kinds of inventive ideas to millions, if not billions, of people. By 2006, he had broadened its scope so that religious leaders, artists, life coaches, poets, and other bright minds could join original stars like Jane Goodall and Stewart Brand on the TED stage. The son of two missionaries, Anderson also bestowed upon TED a subtitle: "ideas worth spreading."

TED is now a household name in educated, urban pockets of the US and beyond. At TED's home office, a counter projected on to the server-room door shows a live feed of the day's video views. Shortly after lunch on a recent October visit, the counter had already reached 1.3 million. The most popular talk — Sir Ken Robinson's "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" — has been viewed more than 61 million times.

But as it's gotten bigger TED has seemed to at times struggle to maintain oversight at its conferences and offices. Several attendees of the 2017 TED Conference said they'd been sexually harassed or groped, according to The Washington Post.

Casting a broader net has also invited critics who take issue with what TED has become. In 2013, Benjamin H. Bratton, an associate professor of visual arts at the University of California at San Diego, gave a TEDx talk in which he argued that TED doesn't actually inspire people to think or behave differently.

He called the platform "middlebrow megachurch infotainment" and suggested TED is complicit in "dumbing down the future." In a 2014 New York Times profile of Anderson, David Hochman called TED "the Starbucks of intellectual conglomerates."

Sinek defended TED's emphasis on simplifying complex topics as one of the reasons TED exists in the first place.

"That's the idea," he said. "If ideas are so complex that nobody can ever hear them, then what's the value to the general population? But if we can learn to communicate our ideas in ways that people can understand them, isn't that a good thing? Many academics hate TED because they're the ones who didn't get TED famous."

Giving videos away for free isn't cheap

The company's main TED Conference is held every year in Vancouver and remains its flagship moneymaker. Capped at 1,800 attendees — or "TEDsters" if they are regulars — the event features five days of nonstop activity.

Many academics hate TED because they're the ones who didn't get TED famous.

Titans of the tech, science, art, design, and entertainment world attend TED for the chance to adjourn, however briefly, to a brighter future. Access to this future isn't cheap. Tickets cost $8,500 and up, and the high price has rankled some who say TED is hypocritical for spreading ideas only to those wealthy enough to hear them. At the 2017 event, branded partner BMW let people test-drive new high-end models. Lululemon provided an indoor pod for meditation and yoga.

Anderson said he's trying to structure the 2018 conference so that more of a general audience can attend, perhaps through a lottery system. And he defended the cost of admission as a way to bring TED talks to a broad audience. "They're the people who are actually paying for us to spend literally tens of millions of dollars every year on a website that distributes these talks to the world," he said.

An evolving company figures out what’s next

Anderson's goal is to allow the 3 to 5 billion people expected to come online by 2020 to draw inspiration from TED. He called this digital migration "the most extraordinary social experiment we've seen in history."

"There just hasn't been a time when a girl in a remote village or a boy in a slum who is unemployed and angry and trying to figure out what to do with his life, can actually have, 18 inches from their eyeballs and plugged into their ears, some of the most inspiring speakers and mentors," he said.

Attracting that new audience comes with a new set of quandaries. It means thinking about how to bring TED's ideas to people who don't speak English, can't access technology, or may want to hear certain ideas at critical moments.

"There were a number of talks we shared in the wake of the events in Charlottesville," said Colin Helms, TED's head of media, referring to the August riots that took place in Virginia between white-supremacist groups and counterprotesters. "We're always sensitive to not taking a political stance, but we also have an obligation to share ideas that we think will empower and help people, particularly in times of need or the world is in a sense of disarray, wherever that may be."

Expanding TED also means considering future speakers even more carefully.

There will always be the marquee stars Anderson wants to get, like astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (who has yet to accept an invite). But for the young person living in a slum, Anderson said, "How do we find the person who will speak to them and will give them what they need?"

The clearest sign TED is making good on its global mission is the December launch of "TED Talks India: Nayi Soch," its first foreign TV series. Broadcast in Hindi with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan as its host, the series will air on India's largest TV network, Star Plus. The network reaches 650 million people.

Juliet Blake, the executive producer of the series, said the program would consist of eight one-hour shows, each with a different theme. The talks were developed with the TED team in English and then translated to Hindi for the stage.

Khan, one of India's icons, said the global crisis of ideas has reached India.

"This kind of show, at this time in the world, is an encouragement to people," Khan told Business Insider. "If you've got a simple idea, let's exchange it. Let's not get chained to the thoughts that are pervading or being talked about around us."

According to Blake, TED wanted to make a focused effort to emphasize equality in the Indian series, so the company appointed women to roughly half the lineup spots. Many of the talks become quite intense, Blake said.

During a talk on violence against women, "I looked at the audience, and so many of the women in the audience were crying," Blake said. When the woman finished her talk, Blake said, she rushed out of the control room and down four flights of stairs to meet her as she got offstage. The audience was on its feet. Khan was in tears.

"It started off as a brilliant talk," Blake said. "But it became something more than a TED talk. I think it will be life-changing for many women in India."

Future unknown, but exciting

As TED has grown into a public-facing behemoth over the past three decades, it's been forced to reevaluate what kinds of responsibilities it has to the people who catch wind of its ideas.

TED's role as global ideas curator comes with an open-ended future, and it's a matter of ongoing discussion inside the company, Helms said.

Even though the world is engulfed in a crisis of ideas, Anderson said people still crave rational, lucid insight into issues related to their basic livelihoods and ongoing challenges. He brought up the rise of artificial intelligence and wealth inequality as two examples.

"When you can have 2 billion customers two years after starting up a business, that's a recipe for a few people getting extraordinarily wealthy — and then what?" Anderson said. "What happens next? We don't have answers to that yet, so I'm definitely interested in that."

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