There are lots of ways to educate yourself on the Internet. You can find photos, documents, and films on almost any topic you can imagine. And at www.ted.com, you can access lectures by artists, scholars, designers, technicians and others.
TED began in 1984 as a conference that brought together individuals from the fields of technology, entertainment and design. It was intended to be a one-time event focusing on technology and design. The event ended up losing money, and it was six years before the founders tried it again. This time it worked, and since 1990, the TED conference has been an annual event. There are now two held every year, with topics as diverse as music, medicine, and money. Other specialized spin-off conferences address narrower issues.
The TED website came from a desire to share the conferences with the world, to "offer free knowledge from the world's most inspired thinkers," as the website puts it. The current version of the site was launched in April 2007, and contains videos of talks given at the TED conferences around the world. The talks are transcribed into hundreds of languages.
The TED website is owned by the Sapling Foundation, a non profit devoted to fostering the spread of great ideas. The Sapling foundation acquired TED in 2001. Since then, it has been focusing on using TED to broadcast ideas that might change the world.
TED, of course, isn't immune to criticism. It's been called elitist(精英) for its high ticket prices (more than 6,000 dollars total). It's been accused by a few people of censorship for not publishing their talks. One controversial speaker was upset about being criticized by the conference's host afterward.
The complaints, however, seem to be relatively few for such a large, long-running organization. And accusations of elitism ring hollow when so much is given away for free on TED's website. Whatever its failings, TED is a source of inspirational information for those who seek it out.
