Photos: James Duncan Davidson

Kate Stone loves paper, and she loves technology, so she resolved to combine the two, which she shows us in a magical demonstration on the TED stage. But first, three key moments that got her to where she is today:

1. An obsession with technology: As a child, she hid switches behind the wall in her bedroom, ran wires underneath the carpet — and hid an FM transmitter inside a carved-out book. She used the book to eavesdrop on her parents, though she says she was more interested in the idea of technology hidden within a generic object than in what her parents were saying. “I liked the idea of an everyday object doing something different,” she says.

2. Successfully failing exams: “As a sort of reward,” she says, her parents shipped her off to Australia, where she ended up working on a remote farm in the middle of nowhere, deep in the outback, mustering sheep, gathering them from paddocks, and bringing them back to the homestead. “I thought sheep were pretty stupid, because they didn’t do what we wanted them to do,” she says. “But they weren’t stupid at all. We’d put them where they didn’t want to be, and they didn’t do what we wanted them to do.” So she mastered tricks to guide the sheep to the places they didn’t want to visit.

3. Physics is just like farming: Exams or no exams, she later headed to Cambridge to study for her PhD in physics, where she realized that moving electrons was akin to moving sheep. Told she couldn’t possibly move electrons individually, she determined to prove her detractors wrong. By adapting the conditions in which she was working, she made her theories work.

Now Stone works in printing, and she determined to use conventional printing techniques to make paper and card interactive. Once again she was told it couldn’t be done, and once again she resolved to overcome the naysayers. Nearly bankrupting herself, she bought a printing press and learned to print, figuring out a way to make regular old paper genuinely interactive. “It’s pretty simple really,” she says, though it’s clearly nothing of the sort. “It’s things that have been done before but brought together in a different way.”

She’s brought some examples with her, including a large interactive poster that can determine a viewer/user’s favorite type of cake. Or interactive newsprint, for which a reader can connect wirelessly to listen to music in a record review, or eavesdrop on a press conference. The third project was a poster to influence people to use energy more wisely. “If your energy usage was trending better, leaves would appear,” she describes. “If they didn’t, there’d be graffiti and the leaves would fall off the trees.”

And now, the moment of truth, the live demo. Stone is clearly nervous as she approaches a poster pinned up nearby. It has a drumset printed on it, and she taps one of the drums gingerly. Yes! It works! It’s truly charming, and she taps on all of the drums, including the high hat, a few times for good measure.

More confident, she moves to her grand finale, a set of DJ turntables and a mixing board printed onto a neat square of cardboard. She plays us a piece of music recorded by her 15-year-old niece Charlotte, manipulating the volume and effects of the music as she does so. “I’m not a DJ, I’m not a musician,” she says. But it’s clear she’s rightly proud of her invention. “I love bringing technology together, having fun, being creative,” she concludes. “It’s not about technology. It’s about creating a great experience.”

Kate Stone’s talk is now available for viewing. Watch it on TED.com »

A friend recently told me this story: The first time he took his daughter, age 4, on the New York City subway at 9 o’clock in the morning, she anxiously tugged on his sleeve and motioned for him to bend down.

She whispered: “Are these people all mad at each other?”

New York strap-hangers know the scene well — a subway car full of people, all tired and straight-lipped, looking past each other without interacting in the slightest. They clutch at books, mash thumbs at smartphones and disappear into their music — actively ignoring the others around them.  The scene is repeated on trains in major cities all around the world, as people file into work day after day.

But two recent TED speakers — one in London and one in New York. — are hoping to change this. Both gave talks, just weeks apart, about creative ways to encourage interaction on the subway. And thus, we are sharing their thoughtful talks below as a kind of e-introduction.

BBC producer Emily Kasriel gave the talk above, “A manifesto for a meaningful commute,” at TEDxHousesofParliament on June 22. Emily worries that by cocooning ourselves in individual bubbles during what should be a shared experience, we are damaging our psyches and wasting large tracts of time. In the talk, she proposes six actions to take toward a better commute — including, gasp, starting conversations with strangers.

Meanwhile, improv enthusiast Kristin Pedimonti gave this talk, “Bringing joy to everyday moments,” at TED@NewYork, part of the 2013 Talent Search, on June 7. Kristin also finds herself disturbed by the lack of interaction on the subway. In this talk, she talks about how she blows bubbles on rush-hour trains, even giving out bottles of bubble soap to others, to bring out people’s playful sides. How can you recognize her on the MTA? She’ll be the one carrying the sign that reads: “free hugs.”