The former National Security Agency contractor leaves TED's audience divided. Plus, technology design, architectural ideas and more. 
 
 FORTUNE -- TED, which stands for 'technology, entertainment and design," is almost impossible to characterize beyond that ridiculously broad rubric. Best known for its slick, 18-minute "talks," some of the best speakers on Tuesday read from their typewritten texts. Most of its highly accomplished speakers wear sneakers despite being on one of the world's most important stages. (Female speakers are more likely to dress professionally and stylishly; the men have been cowed by tradition into not wearing neckties.) 
 
 My biggest surprise so far at TED, taking place this week at a convention center on the harbor in Vancouver, is the uneven quality of the talks. Knowing the Steve Jobs-like rehearsal regimen TED's producers impose on presenters, I expected to be wowed by every talk. But upon reflection, that just wasn't realistic on my part. Besides, judging a speech is a highly subjective endeavor. What sings every time is the production value of the entire conference. The seamless flow is nothing short of stunning, and the content itself in an eclectic collection of lectures that can best be described as the most intense college seminar you never attended. 
 
 Bran Ferren, a "technology designer" who once was a Disney "Imagineer," is a case in point of the TED serendipity and diversity. With almost no visuals, he read a speech that was the opposite of slick -- and totally engaging. He likened the Internet to concrete, a valuable building material but no more than that. He gave perhaps the most compelling explanation I've heard for why what he called "autonomous vehicles" will be one of the most positive developments for civilization for years to come. Self-driving cars, once they are perfected, will reduce pollution, eliminate congestion and "recapture vast amounts of lost productivity," said Ferren, due to all the time humans no longer will be stuck in traffic. There are a few kinks left to be worked out, like teaching cars how to "wake up" their passengers for input about surroundings best left to a human to analyze. 
 
 MORE: Dispatch from TED: Ingesting information and sampling celebrity 
 
 The best talk of the day, in my book, was a rollicking presentation on three decades of architectural history by the architect Marc Kushner. He lucidly explained that architects swing on a predictable pendulum from innovation (which they love but the public often hates) to symbols (which bore them but the public finds comforting). "Symbols are easy and cheap," said Kushner, with architectural disdain. "Instead of making places, we make symbols of places." Good news though: Kushner says digital media is changing everything because architects now have the ability to seek real-time feedback from their clients and the public as their projects are being built. He cited a public building on Fire Island in New York that his firm designed and posted drawings about on Facebook and Instagram as it moved from planning to construction. He said residents already knew what to expect by the time the innovative building was finished. And they liked it. 
 
 Edward Snowden was Day 2's surprise highlight. Chris Anderson, TED's "curator," interviewed a robot that moved around the stage with a video screen with Snowden's face broadcast from his undisclosed location in Russia. Listening to Snowden speak at length was riveting and revelatory. He comes across as totally reasonable, sane and convincing. He made a strong case for his motivations, love him or hate him. "Who I am doesn't really matter at all," Snowden said. "What matters are the issues." The issues that Snowden passionately argued are the rights to privacy he says his former contract employer, the National Security Agency, has trampled. "Your rights matter because you never know when you're going to need them," he said. "They are part of our cultural identity" as Americans. Snowden also called on big U.S. Internet companies to encrypt web browsing on their sites as a default setting, which would prevent governments, including the U.S., from gaining easy access to the behavior of U.S. citizens. 
 
 In an interesting moment, TED's Anderson asked the audience to raise their hands if they thought Snowden was a hero or a villain. About 10% rejected his heroic status, and a louder, more enthusiastic group supported Snowden. Anderson astutely noted that many people -- myself included -- didn't raise their hands at all. Importantly, Anderson noted that he invited the NSA to send a representative to the conference, and that they claimed logistical challenges. Given that he'd accommodate a video hookup for the NSA as well, it'd be a fascinating contrast if they accepted his invitation. I left the extended interview, which lasted much longer than 18 minutes, convinced that Snowden has done a service to the country. But I am unprepared to say he shouldn't be punished for what obviously are violations of the law. 
 
 MORE: Why TED talks are better than the last speech you sat through 
 
 Another highlight of the day was Amanda Burden, the head of planning for New York under Michael Bloomberg. She explained the painstaking process of zoning in support of a policy to ensure that all new housing development in New York take place within a 10-minute walk of a subway station. She detailed her constant fights with real estate developers, including the builders of the massive Hudson Yards project (featured last year on the cover of Fortune magazine), who wanted to tear down and then re-build a portion of the now treasured High Line park. "Commercial interests will always battle against public spaces," said Burden. 
 
 Eclecticism didn't end with self-driving cars, architecture, national security and urban planning. David Kwong, a magician and New York Times crossword puzzle creator dazzled the crowd by combining his two professions while presenting the thesis that "human beings are wired to solve." (The New York World published the first crossword puzzle 100 years ago. Who knew?) Physicist Michel Laberge spoke about commercializing fusion, activist Peggy Liu reviewed environmental efforts in China, typeface designer Matthew Carter discussed the technology behind creating new fonts in the computer age, and documentary filmmaker Yoruba Richen described her efforts to track the histories of civil rights with gay rights in the U.S. 
 
 TED also knows how to change the pace of events, understanding that a repetitive cadence of talks of just one length would get boring. So in the afternoon Tuesday it gave past speakers the opportunity to update quickly their popular talks from past TEDs. The famed psychologist Phil Zimbardo explained the demise of "guys" and suggested things are getting worse. (He says schools are "feminized" by too few male teachers and that Japanese men are so hooked on computer porn they don't want to have the traditional kind of sex.) The oceanographer David Gallo said the only word he can think of to describe a climate denier is "dumb ass." 
 
 Bill and Melinda Gates were the focal point of the final session, in addition to a charming and enjoyable performance by Sting. The Gateses didn't say much new, though they did show photos of their children, they said, because the kids told them they want the world to know they care deeply about the philanthropic work their parents are doing with the Gates Foundation. 
 
 It's a lot for one day. Expect more Thursday. ||||| Edward Snowden made a surprise appearance at TED today, telling the mostly supportive crowd to expect more revelations from his vast cache of secret National Security Agency documents. 
 
 The NSA whistleblower took to the stage during the conference’s second day via a video chatbot he controlled from what TED organizer Chris Anderson called an “undisclosed location.” Snowden said there are still revelations to be made and stories to be told about the intelligence agency. “I don’t think there’s any question that some of the most important reporting to be done is yet to come,” Snowden said, just one week after appearing at SXSW in Austin, Texas. 
 
 ‘To people who have seen and enjoyed the free and open internet, it’s up to us to preserve that liberty for the next generation to enjoy.’ 
 
 —Edward Snowden 
 
 Rather than the traditional 18-minute TED talk, in which a single speaker addresses the audience, Anderson essentially interviewed Snowden. Through a strikingly clear connection, the bot-ified Snowden was poised and good-humored as he called on tech companies to make SSL encryption the default for browsing the web. “To people who have seen and enjoyed the free and open internet, it’s up to us to preserve that liberty for the next generation to enjoy,” he said. 
 
 Anderson suggested that Snowden’s sentiments parallel those of Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, who has recently used the 25th anniversary of the world wide web to call for an “internet bill of rights.” But because this was TED, Anderson didn’t have to speculate on the similarities between the goals of Snowden and Berners-Lee. He simply brought Berners-Lee on stage to find out. 
 
 Asked by Anderson whether he thought Snowden was a traitor or a hero, Berners-Lee went with “hero, if you have to make the choice between the two.” Snowden said internet rights were not just about principles but about technology. “I believe a magna carta for the internet is exactly what we need,” Snowden said. “We need to encode our values not just in writing but in the structure of the internet.” 
 
 Berners-Lee told Snowden that his hope on the web’s 25th anniversary was to get everyday users who don’t normally consider the internet in terms of rights to consider the web they really want. He asked Snowden how he thought the web would best work. “When we think about it in terms of how far we can go, I think that’s a question that’s limited only by what we’re willing to do,” Snowden said. “I think the internet that we’ve enjoyed in the past has been exactly what we, not just as a nation but as a people around the world, need.” If the web’s technologists can truly enlist the web’s casual users as allies, he said, “we’ll get not just the internet we’ve had, but a better internet.” 
 
 At the end of Snowden’s appearance, Anderson stuck a TED conference badge on Snownden’s bot and invited him to stick around for the week. With that, he rolled offstage, accompanied by his lawyer. ||||| Zoom in on this story . Explore all there is to know. 
 
 Edward Snowden appears by robot at a TED conference in Vancouver. Photo: AFP 
 
 Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden has emerged from his Russian exile in the form of a remotely-controlled robot to promise more sensational revelations about US spying programs. 
 
 The fugitive's face appeared on a screen as he manoeuvred the wheeled android around a stage at the TED gathering, addressing an audience in Vancouver without ever leaving his secret hideaway. 
 
 "There are absolutely more revelations to come," he said. "Some of the most important reporting to be done is yet to come." 
 
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 Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who has been charged in the United States with espionage, dismissed the public debate about whether he is a heroic whistleblower or traitor. 
 
 Instead, he used the conference organised by educational non-profit organisation TED, or Technology Entertainment Design, to call for people worldwide to fight for privacy and internet freedom. 
 
 Internet creator Tim Berners-Lee briefly joined Snowden's interview with TED curator Chris Anderson, and came down in the hero camp. 
 
 When Anderson posed the question to the TED audience – known for famous, innovative, and influential attendees – the idea that Snowden was a force for good met with applause. 
 
 Hero or traitor? 
 
 "Hero patriot or traitor; I would say I am an American citizen just like anyone else," Snowden said. 
 
 "What really matters here is the kind of government we want; the kind of internet we want." 
 
 He sais he was inspired to pass a huge trove of NSA files to reporters when he saw US spying tactics going too far and intruding into the private data of millions of internet and telephone customers. 
 
 Snowden argued that if he had gone to the US Congress with his concerns he would have risked being "buried along with the information". 
 
 Snowden instead urged the "adversarial press" to challenge government and ignite public debate "without putting national security at risk". 
 
 He argued the dangers critics have played up regarding disclosure of information have not materialised, and insisted he remains comfortable with his decisions. 
 
 He depicted the NSA's PRISM program for getting user information from internet firms as a way for the US government to "deputise corporate America to do its dirty work". 
 
 And he blasted a US secret court for seldom rejecting NSA requests to compel internet companies to turn over user data and US legislators for showing little oversight. 
 
 Snowden urged internet companies to stand against online snooping by encrypting online activity by default so spies could easily note anything from book browsing at Amazon.com to visiting websites. 
 
 People should be able to book air travel, order books, make phone calls and send text messages without worrying about how it will look to an agent of the government, Snowden declared. 
 
 "More communications are being intercepted in America about Americans that there are in Russia about Russians," Snowden said. 
 
 Terrorism mantra 
 
 Snowden argued the NSA is making the US, and the world, less safe by lobbying for weak standards that could open back doors into online venues or services such as online commerce or banking. 
 
 "Our basic freedoms are not a partisan issue," he said. 'It is up to us to protect them; it is up to us to preserve the open internet." 
 
 Snowden endorsed the campaign by Berners-Lee for a global Magna Carta laying out values and rights on the internet. 
 
 "A Magna Carta for the internet is exactly what we need," Snowden said. 
 
 Anderson said the NSA had been invited to take part in the TED chat with Snowden, but it did not work out "for logistical reasons". 
 
 AFP 
 
 Follow IT Pro on Twitter ||||| VANCOUVER, Canada — Edward Snowden on Tuesday said the biggest revelations have yet to come out of the estimated 1.7 million documents he acquired from the National Security Agency. 
 
 In a surprise appearance via satellite robot at the 2014 TED conference in Vancouver, Snowden said there is still a lot of reporting to be done, including diving deeper into the accusation that the NSA tricks companies into building backdoors into their systems that make data vulnerable to hackers across the world. 
 
 "Is it really terrorism that we're stopping? I say no," Snowden said. "The bottom line is that terrorism [...] has always been a cover for actions. Terrorism evokes an emotional response." 
 
 Snowden, who is still in hiding somewhere in Russia, maintained that his act wasn't reckless and that he did it all for the American people. He also said he would love to return to the United States — if granted immunity. 
 
 "I don't want to harm my government" he said. "The fact that they're willing to ignore due process and declare guilt without a trial [...] these are things we need to work against as a society." 
 
 Snowden remains a controversial figure throughout the world, but he was speaking to the right crowd at TED. When Anderson asked the audience who disagreed with Snowden's actions, only a few hands shot into the air. When he asked if the room felt Snowden was right in handing over the NSA's secret, the audience erupted with applause. Tim Berners-Lee, a man widely credited with inventing the World Wide Web, then stepped on stage to talk with Snowden. 
 
 He called him a "hero." 
 
 After Snowden exposed NSA programs like PRISM, many Americans wanted to know why they should care about this surveillance if they're not guilty of doing anything wrong. Snowden said it comes down to protecting rights. 
 
 "Rights matter because you never know when you’re going to need them," Snowden said, adding that people should be able to pick up the phone and call their family, send a text to their loved ones and travel by train without worrying about how these events will look to a government years in the future. 
 
 The former NSA contractor has been on a public relations tour over the past few weeks, embracing the public debate that has erupted over his actions. He recently made an appearance at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas via satellite, in which he touched on similar talking points that he did on Tuesday. 
 
 "I am living proof that an individual can go head to head with the most powerful intelligence agencies around the world — and win," Snowden said. ||||| Photo by GLENN CHAPMAN/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 It wasn't the newsiest moment in Edward Snowden's address to TED, which he delivered via video that was streamed through a robot. (Check out the picture.) The news, as ever, was probably Snowden's claim that "some of the most important reporting" on his revelations "is yet to come." This is probably true. The archives of documents stolen by Snowden have been enough to support breaking news at the Washington Post, the Guardian, and Pro Publica, to name a few outlets that got some access; an entirely new media company, First Look, was launched on the strength of what Glenn Greenwald, et al. could find in the archives. 
 
 So, no, not newsy, but the part of Snowden's Q&A that stuck out to me was his gleeful swipe at Dick Cheney. 
 
 At the time Julian Assange was doing his greatest work, Dick Cheney was saying he’d endangered governments worldwide, the skies were going to ignite, seas would boil off. Now he says it was a fleabite. We should be suspicious of overblown claims from these officials. But! Let’s assume that these people really believe this. I would argue they have a narrow conception of national security. The prerogatives of people like Dick Cheney do not keep the nation safe. 
 
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 This is not the first time Snowden has made fun of Cheney, whose appeal to the D.C. chat circuit has not dimmed even after he helped his daughter make a spectacular hash of a U.S. Senate primary. Last year, Cheney came up on a Guardian chat and Snowden called it an "honor" to be insulted by the guy. 
 
 So Snowden, who recently turned 30, is adept at the art of insult trading with political figures. Why does it matter? Well, some of the (embryonic) discussion of whether Snowden should leave Russia and give himself up to American justice comes out of the theory that Snowden should become an advocate for his cause. He has controlled his image like ... well, like a guy who doesn't give out his contact info and lives in a country that American journalists need a visa to visit. In the last few months, he's given interviews to Bart Gellman, SXSW, and TED, all of which 1) broke the news he wanted, 2) avoided the news he didn't (no one has asked him, in a public forum, anything about Russian politics or the Crimean incursion), and 3) allowed him to describe his whistleblowing in heroic terms. In the SXSW interview, he even appeared before a screen blow-up of the Constitution. 
 
 Snowden is winning, as shown by the polls and the fumbling responses of American politicians. He's even come up with a reason for his skeptics to distrust the NSA. "If we hack Chinese business and steal its secrets, or those in Berlin, that’s of less value to the American people than making sure that the Chinese can’t get access to our secrets," he said at TED. "In reducing the security of our own communications, they’re putting us at risk in a fundamental way."
– Edward Snowden made a surprise appearance—via a remote-controlled video chat robot—at the TED conference yesterday, and, as at his SXSW appearance, he got a warm welcome. The inventor of the Internet himself, Tim Berners-Lee, appeared onstage and called Snowden a hero, Wired reports, and a vocal segment of the crowd agreed, according to Fortune, with only about 10% deeming him a villain. Snowden's most headline-generating pronouncement was that "there are absolutely more revelations to come. Some of the most important reporting to be done is yet to come." But the appearance itself fascinated David Weigel at Slate. Snowden has essentially positioned himself as a "cyborg thought leader," Weigel writes. With these appearances, he's "controlled his image like … well, like a guy who doesn't give out his contact info and lives in a country that American journalists need a visa to visit." Snowden's TED and SXSW hosts asked exactly the questions he wanted and avoided uncomfortable ones he didn't—like, say, anything to do with Russian politics. "Snowden has outlived the DB Cooper mystery that defined his public debut, and is now situated for a long game in which he becomes more popular and harder to call a traitor." Click for Weigel's full column.