TED

If you're a Netflix subscriber, you should be happy with the sounds coming out of Hollywood.

One entertainment executive told me last week that other Web video companies looking for content should use Netflix as a model for how to work with the major studios. He called the company a "good partner," high praise coming from an industry in which few have anything good to say about Internet companies. This bodes well for Netflix's chances of obtaining more streaming content. When it comes to the studios' complaints about Netflix, there's also something positive to be … Read more

As Netflix revenues soar and as Hulu ponders a $300 million public offering, a group of people who played an enormous part in the brightening prospects of Web TV is very much overlooked.

Managers at the major Hollywood studios: Disney, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Paramount, NBC Universal, and Sony Pictures are pretty much despised in tech land allegedly for their anti-innovation and protectionist ways, but the record shows that, over the past year, they have helped build the foundation for Netflix's success and are embracing digital distribution like never before.

Last summer, the studios signed unprecedented licensing deals … Read more

Nobody epitomized the AOL of the late 1990s better than David Colburn, the foul-mouthed, bully-boy deal maker who oversaw the company's ad empire. Soon after AOL acquired Time Warner--a deal that was presented to the public as a merger, creating a company with a market cap of $350 billion--a Time Warner executive scolded Colburn for being disrespectful.

"You talk like you're buying us," said the Time Warner exec. Legend has it that Colburn fired back: "We are, you putz!"

Colburn's underlings had T-shirts made with his statement emblazoned on the chest. In … Read more

AOL has filled two key positions, grabbing Alex Gounares from Microsoft as the new CTO and promoting Julie Jacobs as the new general counsel.

Gounares arrives at AOL this week to take over as chief technology officer and join the company's Global Executive Operating Committee, the company announced Monday. In his new role, Gounares will spearhead AOL's technology strategy, in charge of platform development and external partnerships. He'll also manage the expansion of AOL's engineering centers and technology staff around the world and be counted on to play a leading role in the company's overall … Read more

According to sources close to the situation, AOL has hired Alex Gounares (pictured here) as its chief technology officer.

Gounare's departure was announced internally at Microsoft today, where he is corporate vice president of Advertising Research and Development and CTO for the software giant's Online Services division.

According to his bio at Microsoft, Gounares "was the corporate vice president for Corporate Strategy, where he was responsible for helping set the overall strategic direction for the company. Before that, Gounares spent three years as the technology assistant to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, and he also was responsible for … Read more

Only a few years ago, a member of Congress serving up an inane comment in a congressional hearing would have merited a brief gossip column mention, or more likely gone unnoticed.

Unfortunately for Rep. Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat, his bizarre question about the island of Guam possibly tipping over--he used the word "capsize"--if additional troops were stationed there became a YouTube sensation on Thursday.

It's no April Fools' Day joke: the 55-year-old congressman and member of the House Democratic leadership told a naval officer who was testifying on March 25 that: "My fear is … Read more

Several colleagues of mine are in London this week to unveil the special TEDGlobal issue of our design mind magazine in a very special TED Salon on Monday, with the title "More Substance of Things Not Seen." The event will be co-hosted by frog design and TED, and moderated by Sam Martin, editor-in-chief of design mind, and Bruno Giussani, European director of TED.

It comes in handy for the frog delegation that this is also the first week of the magnanimous London Design Festival, an eclectic assembly of design-related programs, exhibitions, and parties all over town.… Read more

One of the main themes at TEDGlobal this year was a lively debate between optimistic and pessimistic voices on the social potential (or doom) of the web. This outlook was somewhat more somber than I expected at a TED conference, perhaps – as some attendees suspected – due to the cultural differences between Long Beach and Oxford. There was definitely a palpable sense of enlightened skepticism at the conference, a distinctly European tone that serves as welcome counterweight to the Californian brand of optimism that TED is often associated with (just read this amusingly British commentary in the Times of London).

One … Read more

Understanding why we, as humans, do the things we do is one of the pieces of the puzzle of our existence. Too bad we may have to wait another 10 years for some definitive answers.

This week at the TED Global conference, Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, revealed that he and his team in Switzerland are aiming to build a functioning, artificial human brain within the next 10 years.

The team started out a few years ago by attempting to create a fully functioning artificial rat brain using the IBM supercomputer, Blue Gene. The thought was if they could successfully replicate a rat's brain, they would then leverage their knowledge to do the same with a human one.

When they began their experiment, the digital rat brain only fired neurons when prodded by a simulated electrical current. Recently, however, the neurons have begun spontaneously organizing themselves into a more complex pattern.

According to the scientists, this is the beginning of the self-organizing neurological patterns that eventually, in more complex mammal brains, become personality.… Read more