The linked talk discusses some of the pitfalls with TED (Technology/Entertainment/Design) talks. I disagree with some of his points, but his major thesis is correct IMO:

So my TED talk is not about my work or my new book – the usual spiel – but about TED itself, what it is and why it doesn’t work.

The first reason is over-simplification.

To be clear, I think that having smart people who do very smart things explain what they’re doing in a way that everyone can understand is a good thing. But TED goes way beyond that.

Let me tell you a story. I was at a presentation that a friend, an astrophysicist, gave to a potential donor. I thought the presentation was lucid and compelling (and I’m a professor of visual arts here at UC San Diego so at the end of the day, I know really nothing about astrophysics). After the talk the sponsor said to him, “you know what, I’m gonna pass because I just don’t feel inspired … you should be more like Malcolm Gladwell.”

At this point I kind of lost it. Can you imagine?

Think about it: an actual scientist who produces actual knowledge should be more like a journalist who recycles fake insights! This is beyond popularisation. This is taking something with value and substance and coring it out so that it can be swallowed without chewing. This is not the solution to our most frightening problems – rather this is one of our most frightening problems.

When I was working with my co-author on finding a publisher for my book in the fall of 2010, my wife gave me a copy of Steven Johnson’s new book Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation. I was appalled at the mistakes I found in this generally well-received book. He gave a TED talk which had similar problems.

The problems arise starting around 12 minutes into the video:

1. Transit is not GPS. Transit uses Doppler; GPS uses range measurement (the time the radio wave takes to travel from the satellite to the receiver yields the distance). They are completely different space-based navigation systems.
2. Reagan did not open GPS to public use after the KAL007 was shot down in 1983. TI was selling a civilian receiver in 1981. GPS was going to have a signal open to the public from its initial formulation in 1973. This is illustrated by page 2-9 in the linked 1974 document.

Of course, the TED audience knew little or nothing about the history of GPS and vigorously applauded Johnson at the end of his talk. Alas, the myth that GPS was opened to the public in 1983 was included in Walter Isaacson’s Trailblazers podcast last year and Simon Winchester’s new book The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World. Journalists are excellent at spreading false stories.