Where would we be without the Internet? These talks share how some of the most beloved parts of the web came to be.

Ever feel like the Internet is flooded with hatred and drivel? These speakers can empathize and give you a glimmer of hope.

Visions of the future of everything from cars to the Internet to the human species.

About this video: Advances in science and medicine mean we are living longer lives. How do we protect our aging population while letting them keep the comfort of their lives, their daily routine? Everyday objects with sensors and wifi can track each step of that routine and form a picture of a life being lived, in real time, to the children and ...

Some hackers wreak havoc online, but others are working to create a better internet. Sociologists, journalists and hackers themselves speak up.

Head of TED Chris Anderson speaks with fascinating individuals to dig into some of the most provocative and powerful ideas of our time.

Head of TED Chris Anderson speaks with fascinating individuals to dig into some of the most provocative and powerful ideas of our time.

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian picks 9 talks on the global idea flow. He says, "On an open Internet, where all links are created equal, good ideas win. Anyone, anywhere can share an idea that can be seen by millions."

In this powerful talk from TEDGlobal, Rebecca MacKinnon describes the expanding struggle for freedom and control in cyberspace, and asks: How do we design the next phase of the Internet with accountability and freedom at its core, rather than control? She believes the internet is headed for a "Magna Carta" moment when citizens around the world d...

TED Talks that make sense of this brave, new, virtual world.

Apes, dolphins and elephants are animals with remarkable communication skills. Could the internet be expanded to include sentient species like them? A new and developing idea from a panel of four great thinkers -- dolphin researcher Diana Reiss, musician Peter Gabriel, internet of things visionary Neil Gershenfeld and Vint Cerf, one of the fathe...

Head of TED Chris Anderson speaks with fascinating individuals to dig into some of the most provocative and powerful ideas of our time. (Made possible with the support of Klick Health.)

Vint Cerf, now the chief Internet evangelist at Google, helped lay the foundations for the internet as we know it more than 30 years ago.

Head of TED Chris Anderson speaks with fascinating individuals to dig into some of the most provocative and powerful ideas of our time. (Made possible with the support of Lexus.)

We worry that IM, texting, Facebook are spoiling human intimacy, but Stefana Broadbent's research shows how communication tech is capable of cultivating deeper relationships, bringing love across barriers like distance and workplace rules.

How many poets could cram eBay, Friendster and Monster.com into 3-minute poem worthy of a standing ovation? Enjoy Rives' unique talent.

Millions of images and videos are uploaded to the internet each day, yet we rarely see shocking and disturbing content in our social media feeds. Who's keeping the internet "clean" for us? In this eye-opening talk, documentarians Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck take us inside the shadowy world of online content moderators -- the people contract...

Who controls the internet? Increasingly, the answer is large corporations and governments -- a trend that's threatening digital privacy and access to information online, says web developer Tamas Kocsis. In this informative talk, Kocsis breaks down the different threats to internet freedom and shares his plan to build an alternative, decentralize...

Some believe our world has changed at a rapid pace in recent decades. From the rise of the internet to the proliferation of startups spinning out inventions, it can certainly seem that way. In this episode, though, economist Tyler Cowen argues that none of this has really transformed the ways we live over the last 50 years. But he contends that ...

The next big shift is now, and it's not what you think: Facebook is the new Windows; Google must be sacrificed. Tech investor Roger McNamee presents 6 bold ways to prepare for the next internet.

Without the internet, how would you have coped with the pandemic -- from work and school, to maintaining your closest relationships? In the digital age, reliance on the internet is so common and seems ubiquitous, yet billions of people worldwide still go without it. Digital transformation strategist Priscilla Chomba-Kinywa advocates for collecti...

The Internet connects billions of people and machines; it's the backbone of modern life. But tech pioneer Danny Hillis thinks the Internet just wasn't designed to grow this big -- and he fears that one big cyber-attack or glitch could shut it down and take civilization with it. To head off a digital dark age, he sounds a clarion call to develop ...

The LXD (the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers) electrify the TED stage with an emerging global street-dance culture, revved up by the Internet. Directed by Jon M. Chu, this astonishing troupe of dancers and musicians show off their superpowers.

Journalist Andrew Marantz spent three years embedded in the world of internet trolls and social media propagandists, seeking out the people who are propelling fringe talking points into the heart of conversation online and trying to understand how they're making their ideas spread. Go down the rabbit hole of online propaganda and misinformation ...

Appearing by telepresence robot, Edward Snowden speaks at TED2014 about surveillance and Internet freedom. The right to data privacy, he suggests, is not a partisan issue, but requires a fundamental rethink of the role of the internet in our lives — and the laws that protect it. "Your rights matter," he says, "because you never know when you're ...

The managing editor of Storyful.com, Markham Nolan has watched journalism evolve from the pursuit of finding facts to the act of verifying those floating in the ether.

In 2012, a team of researchers set a world record, transmitting 1 petabit of data— that's 10,000 hours of high-def video— over a fifty-kilometer cable, in a second. This wasn't just any cable. It was a souped-up version of fiber optics, the hidden network that links our planet and makes the internet possible. What is fiber optics and how does it...

What if we could use existing technologies to provide Internet access to the more than 4 billion people living in places where the infrastructure can't support it? Using off-the-shelf LEDs and solar cells, Harald Haas and his team have pioneered a new technology that transmits data using light, and it may just be the key to bridging the digital ...

When a squirrel chewed through a cable and knocked him offline, journalist Andrew Blum started wondering what the Internet was really made of. So he set out to go see it -- the underwater cables, secret switches and other physical bits that make up the net.

Our hyper-connected lives have been rewired for the digital age. These talks explore how the Internet and social media are shaping our relationships, personal lives and sense of self.